


Hearts and Moons Recall the Truth

by kaffyrutsky



Series: Beijo Sonho [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2018-11-29 12:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 116,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaffyrutsky/pseuds/kaffyrutsky
Summary: A cold and beautiful world, a market, a bolt of silk, and a transcendentally blue impossibility - how three people walked through their minds and their memories, and into their future.





	1. Prologue and Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In 2007, 11 long years ago, I began writing a story for **dark_aegis'** and **wendymr's** OT3 ficathon on Live Journal. It was written for **cathica** , who wanted a story with a spectacular moonrise, silk, and an unusual market. I didn't think it would take me a decade to finish the story, but it became something far more, and far more challenging, than I'd expected. It's certain an object (and abject) warning to young writers - never, ever write without a) knowing where you're going, b) having a reasonably detailed outline on paper, even if you think you know where you're going. "Writing organically" is a route one should never take. 
> 
> Why did I keep going? Largely because I have always loved the Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Captain Jack Harkness. I still love them after all these years. I have always, and will always, love the TARDIS. And I ended up falling in love with a number of characters who popped up on a planet that I created, and which I loved as well. So much love - and so much worry that the love didn't translate well onto the page ....
> 
> No matter. It has been completed, and I am in the process of uploading the last 2 chapters. Many thanks to those who helped me keep at it, and who helped in many different ways. Thank you to **a_phoenixdragon, editrx** , and **ljgeoff** , and always, always, always, my Best Beloved, **dr_whuh**. You are the absolute best, and I love you more than cookies.   
>  Thanks and love to everyone I wrote about: to Luisa, Filomena, Nico, Hilda, Salvha and Jao, to David, to Pau and Laowhra, even to Inverno and the elder Bohlver. Thanks, especially, to the Doctor, Rose, and Jack, the OT3 of my heart. What shall I do without this story of yours to tell?   
> Finally, thank you to **cathica** , whose prompt all those years ago started this journey. She's an immensely talented writer and a lovely person, and this is all because of her. Thank you!
> 
> If you decide to read; thank you!

**PROLOGUE**

_The sun was still bright, the wind very cold, when the Doctor found Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness sitting in the Memory Market of Abela Fort’leza._

  
_It was really quite beautiful. Any passing tourist or artist could have assured him of that. The scenery was, after all, what drew both types to Lizhbau. And today, on this late afternoon? Ah, well – the view was spectacular._  
  
_Above his head, Lizhbau’s two moons were pale hints in the faded blue sky of the planet’s high summer. The wind blew frayed and icy ribbons of cloud across them in a fruitless attempt to hide their coming brilliance, as this side of the planet hurtled toward its brief dusk and spectacular night._  
  
_Onrushing darkness shadowed mountains beyond the city in shades of steel and purple, their permanent caps of ice fading with the afternoon light. The fields outside Abela Fort’leza’s blue-washed walls were lush with ripe crops and laden fruit trees, all in pastel hues and all fed by cold rivers that branched around the city and tumbled down into great ravines below._  
  
_Inside the walled city, lamps flared to life with the approach of dusk. Their warm glow replaced the now-plummeting sun. The slender trees along the avenues and boulevards of Abela Fort’leza cast shadows, not as sharp as they had under their unforgiving sun, but dark enough. Their feathery leaves moved with the constant wind, and the shadows danced across the walls and windows of the market._  
  
_It was an attractive confusion of stalls and one-storey shops, each shop painted a different shade of blue, each stall awning striped with more blue and the occasional hint of gold or palest green. It was threaded through with alleys, bricked sidewalks and roads just wide enough for the never-ending parti-colored stream of people: laughing, talking, coming by foot, in carriages, by two-wheeled carts and floaters, all looking for bargains, or heading home after finding some._  
  
_The river brightened into a flow of night time partiers, many stopping briefly to pick up last minute gifts, an extra bottle of wine or spirits, some special delicacy to present a host or hostess. Music spilled from some nearby café, providing a final lovely touch. As the artists told the tourists, as the tourists told their friends when they returned home: “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the market, in cold Lizhbau’s great city.”_  
  
_The sun was gone, the wind was colder, and the bright flood of humanity streamed around Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness, as they sat, a length of blue silk cloth stretched between them, unheeding of the Doctor and all his pleadings, in the Memory Market of Abela Fort’leza._

  
****************************************************

 **CHAPTER ONE** (In which Jack ponders the dangers of affection.)

Jack hadn’t left the TARDIS with Rose and the Doctor to go sight-seeing when they arrived on Lizhbau. He’d been intent on a mission to the library, ferreting out whatever information he could about the blue box’s operation and nature.  
  
“Seems she’s not makin’ a fuss about you touchin’ her,” the Doctor had grumbled after watching Jack do some minor make-work he’d been assigned. “Since I don’t want that makin’ you too cocksure, you need to do some reading.”  
  
“Be still my heart,” Jack had grinned when he finally understood what that entailed. “Did you hear that, Rose? I’ve got library privileges!”  
  
“Aren’t you the brilliant one,” Rose had teased. “Told you the Doctor would see reason. Didn’t you, Doctor? It’ll be good to have someone more’n me to help you with Her, yeah?”  
  
“Don’t think giving him something to do gets you off the hook,” the Doctor said. “Can’t have layabouts in my ship, now, can I?”  
  
“As if! I do all the laundry around here, and most of the picking up — not to mention finding the tools you swore were somewhere in the Vortex, and fixing the plumbing. I seem to remember a certain high an’ mighty alien who was glad to get his hot shower back,” she shot back.  
  
“The TARDIS would have fixed it,” the Doctor had muttered as he reached for her hand. Rose had laughed out loud and reached back. She was still glowing when she’d turned once more to Jack, with that glorious smile. He’d felt his breath catch in his throat.  
  
  
“Are you sure you don’t wanna put off that library visit? Come on to the market with us, Jack; it won’t be half as much fun without you.”  
  
“Oi! Life of the party here,  _and_ tour guide,” came the Doctor’s mock-outraged retort.  
  
“Yeah, right. That’d be the alien in charge of getting us in trouble no matter what peaceful planet he assures us is gonna be a fantastic rest stop.” She had started to giggle again, but stopped in order to check once more with the Captain. “Jack? Last chance?”  
  
“I can’t deny that I’d like to, But as intriguing as the shopping trip sounds, I have a feeling there’s a pop quiz on the TARDIS in my future, and if I want to pass, I’d better do some serious studying,” he’d told her. “Tell you what, though. How about I join you two in three or four standard hours...say at the market’s central fountain? It’s a big tourist draw, so it’ll be easy for me to find.”  
  
“Alright, and we’ll take you to tea as a reward for all your studyin’, won’t we Doctor?”  
  
“Oh right. Gallons of tea. And whatever passes for beans on toast in Abela Fort’leza,” the Doctor had said, moving close behind Rose and putting his hands comfortably, and territorially, on her shoulders. Rose smiled up at him, then back at Jack.  
  
_That smile could power the TARDIS,_ the giddy boy in him whispered.  _And if you so much as try to bathe in the warmth,_  the jaded time agent in him warned, wondering why the hell that long-buried part of him had to surface for this particular woman, _you’ll be nothing but dispersed potentialities in the time vortex, courtesy of the last Lord of Gallifrey._  
  
Which darkly compelling alien was giving him an opaque look right now, he’d realized, with another lurch of his insides, this one a bit lower than his throat. Damn the man for looking as he did, for moving as he did, for...for being everything he was. Because there was no way he’d let Jack anywhere near him, the renegade Time Agent knew. Tease, yes, perhaps even flirt — but Jack saw the detachment behind the Doctor’s cheerfully manic grin.  
  
_Rose and the Doctor, the Doctor and Rose...you incredible idiot,_  Jack had thought as the other two jostled and joshed with each other, getting ready to go out.  _Don’t you go falling for either of them. Not the innocent, not the alien. That way lies madness._

  
  
  
_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose and the Doctor discover a message, and the Doctor is reminded of pheromonical lures.

“Doctor, you need to look at this!”

He’d been picking desultorily at a jewelry display (amethyst that wasn’t, sapphires that weren’t, things that weren’t diamond or jade) vague thoughts of finding one to route Rose’s way foremost in his mind, when he heard the tone in her voice and looked up.

It had been a very full day by their unusual standards, despite a lack of violence, invasions, conspiracies or unprovoked attacks

He and Rose had spent the morning hiking the fields and orchards outside Abela Fort’leza. She had taken dozens of pictures of the remarkably beautiful countryside, had squeaked happily as she dodged icy spray from the tumbling river, and hadn’t even noticed the cold winds, so determined was she to clamber to the top of every stony outcropping and orchard hillock.

Eventually, they decided they were hungry, and the two of them headed into the city for some street vendor food. He’d warned her about one or two of her choices, and had been pleased that she choked down both, and liked one of them.

For the past three standard hours, Rose had caromed between stalls in the main square: picking up pieces of crockery for closer examination at one place, trying on a colorful hat at another and pronouncing it very chic, leafing through Lizhbauan periodicals and books at one stall, still tickled that the TARDIS could help her understand written languages, too, then finding a food stall where she’d paid for some sweets, half of which she popped in her own mouth and half of which were pressed on him. 

The Doctor, skilled by now in the art of watching her without seeming to watch her, loved seeing her this way. She wasn’t just shopping, she was soaking up the world around her.

It was why he kept looking for peaceful layovers like this. When they had time to breath and explore, instead of stumbling into misstep after crisis after disaster (his failing, not hers, whatever jibes he made about jeopardy-friendly companions) _this_ happened. 

He never tired of the look in her eyes as she processed all the new information, the new planets and times, the new creatures and beings, new manners of dress, of singing – oh, the singing, Rose adored listening to new music and songs, human and otherwise and trying to sing them – of dressing, of speaking. Of thinking.

He loved fielding her questions, on the spot or back home ( _home?_ ) in the TARDIS. They’d talk in the kitchen, over tea, for hours into whatever passed for night on his ship. Or they’d head for the library, where she’d drape herself over some chair and he’d stretch out on the sofa until her questions energized him and he found himself pacing while talking, as close to joyous as he could be while he taught her what he knew. And still, always, watching her; her frowns of concentration, her laughter when some concept clicked for her...

_I remember when I hated to answer questions,_ he thought, before she reached his side and he registered the worry in her eyes. He dismissed all memories of white-haired arrogance and velvet-caped petulance. “What am I supposed to be lookin’ at?”

“This.” She kept her voice low, but she looked troubled as she thrust a tattered pamphlet into his hands. 

One look, and he understood. “Ah.”

“That’s all you’re gonna say?” Rose looked around at the lovely market, and shivered. 

“Nope.” 

The pamphlet was a crude affair, product of the simplest kind of hand-cranked printer. Its message was equally simple. The language was one of the graceful neo-human tongues particular to the First Great and Bountiful Empire; what Rose could read because of the TARDIS, the Doctor had mastered centuries ago.

“‘To anyone who finds this letter’,” he read aloud. “‘Please read it, because what we tell you, you will not hear from anyone else. Don’t throw it away and don’t believe what the Governor says about us. We are not criminals or madmen, and we are not spreading lies, or idle gossip. The Memory Market is real’– “

”Memory Market?”

“Must mean this place,” he said, casting a newly wary eye at their surroundings before continuing. “Let’s see...‘the Memory Market is real, and it’s here, in Abela Fort’leza, hiding in plain sight. We are the survivors of the Memory Market. We’re the ones the silk could not steal, and the merchants couldn’t kill. We escaped the traders who buy the silk-stolen. Our minds and our bodies are still ours. But look about you! You know something rotten has happened to our city! Your neighbor hasn’t moved away, she has been taken! The children haven’t run away, they’ve been taken! The thieves and the criminals have not been sentenced to jails, they have been taken! You could be taken, if you say the wrong thing, or anger the wrong official! You must believe us, and find someone to tell, someone who can help us. Don’t trust the Governor. Find others who believe, and talk to them. Petition the Emperor! Only together can we be strong and safe’– and that’s where it ends, I see.

“Not exactly a call for revolution, then. Not a good one, at any rate. This is all over the place...” He focused. “Where’d you get this?”

“I was looking at a book of poetry, and a bunch of them fell out. The book monger went mental. He grabbed at them, right out of my hand. Ripped them up, said something about vandals and troublemakers. I couldn’t catch a lot of it, he was talkin’ so fast. He started apologizing, and asking what he could get for me. I just smiled, like I was completely oblivious, made like an idiot tourist without a clue. When he finished bowin’ an’ scrapin’ and went off to serve another customer, I picked up the one he’d missed.”

She looked up at him. “I read it, Doctor, and I started lookin’ around. I mean _really_ lookin’, the way you do. I shouldn’t be this affected by some tatty piece of propaganda, but...this one, I dunno. It rings true, if you see what I mean. This place is beautiful, but when I really paid attention, I saw it. The people are scared half out of their wits. And there’s all those toughs hanging around. I don’t know if they’re police, but they’re givin’ everyone the fish eye and mum’d nick them for rozzers in a minute.” 

That was his cue to start paying attention to something other than her. The only problem with watching Rose, or thinking (too much) about her, was that sometimes his powers of observation were...misapplied. Jack would–  


_Handsome Jack would throw you entirely off your stride–_

He shook his head. What that thought was doing there...( _Jack and Rose, Rose and Jack–_ Stop _it!_ )

“Doctor? You OK?” Her brown eyes held only concern.

“Doin’ fine, thanks. Just taking a leaf from your book. Checking the scene.”

“And?” She was still looking at him oddly.

“You’re right. Everyone around here looks–”

“–like they know they’re bein’ watched. Am I right?”

The wind’s chill increased; Lizhbau’s sun had dropped behind a bank of impenetrable cloud on the horizon and around them, the market’s own lights were flaring into life. 

Rose suddenly shivered and clutched at the fleece jacket she was wearing. “Yknow, I didn’t notice how cold it is here while we were traipsing about those hills. Thought I’d worn the right jacket.”

“C’mere.” He put one leather-clad arm around her, pulling her close and grinning at her as her arm crept around his waist. “Can’t go checking the situation out when you’re freezin,’ can we?”

She nodded into his chest, and his coat muffled her reply: “Right. What do we do, then? Wait for Jack?”

He could feel her excitement rise, smell it in the increased tang of adrenaline she let off. It mixed with what he thought of as Essence of Rose, the fruit and musk, and he breathed deep, grinning fiercely into her hair. _I only travel with the best,_ he thought, _the best, bravest, maddest of apes...and now there are two and how can I resist–_

“The Captain? Nah, not yet. Let’s figure out what we’re looking for first. I’d say that book monger of yours is our first stop.”

The book monger was only the first stop. He hadn’t wanted to tell them anything, had insisted he knew nothing about the pamphlets. When he saw Rose’s raised eyebrow, he realized he’d been caught out, and tried another tack. He offered his name, Pau Sampaio. They were children’s pranks, Pau Sampaio said. After one glowering look from the Doctor, he shifted uncomfortably and started again; they were malicious attempts to defame him in the eyes of the authorities; no, he mis-spoke – they were rabble-rousers who prattled stupidly about something that didn’t exist. It couldn’t, not in this law-abiding city....

“You quite done going on?” the Doctor asked, superficially calm as he examined his fingernails, but pitching his voice high enough to be heard easily across the fountain square. “Look at me. Do I look like a fool? No one writes something like that unless they’re desperate, and no one denies the information unless it’s true. D’you get my drift?” He smiled, and looked more dangerous then than many men did whilst brandishing weapons. Sampaio slumped.

“I can’t tell you anything more, Ser and Sera, I swear it. But I can tell you who knows more about these...these screeds,” he said, checking first the increasingly shrill night time crowd, then the silent men who still lounged against walls and porch poles around the market. Having apparently decided he had escaped their notice, he said, “I can show you to her. I’m closing up for the night. Go away now, but follow me when I leave.”

They did. Rose held the Doctor’s hand for comfort, and to avoid being separated in the crowd through which the trader was making his way. Soon the crowd thinned; they were out of the market proper, working their way down first one narrow sidewalk then another, always keeping their unwilling guide in sight. 

This part of Abela Fort’leza was not an area tourists came, the Doctor saw as his eyes adjusted to the increasingly erratic light. Where the buzzing and often-malfunctioning lamps illuminated them, the shops were smaller, meaner, their blue-washed walls faded and dirty. In this neighborhood, the windows were uniformly grimy and small. About three turns along, he and Rose started having to guide each other around or over mounds of trash. They also had to watch where they were going to avoid crunching over broken glass; not far ahead, the book monger did the same without watching his footing. 

There were no shops now, just warehouse doors and nondescript buildings of indeterminate use. Some were multi-storey, and a few had second floor windows. Shadows moved behind one or two, but most froze as their footsteps approached. Something that sounded a bit like a dog barked in the distance.

“Doctor, are you sure we shouldn’t wait and go back to get Jack? It’s almost completely dark, and he’s expecting us back at the fountain.” Rose kept it quiet, but looked up at him, requiring an answer.

It was like a ewer of cold water poured over head. They should. They should go back, and rendezvous with the Captain. All three of them should head back to the TARDIS, they should probably just leave Lizhbau– 

“No, wait, Doctor, look at Sampaio! He just ducked into that door there,” Rose said, all the unease gone from her voice as the tang of her fear adrenaline deepened back into excitement. 

_Mother of worlds, I’ve taught her all the wrong lessons,_ he thought, even as he felt his own adrenal system shift output to mirror hers. Their spoor combined dizzyingly in his nose and his lungs. He looked at the door, just now shutting, then back at Rose. 

“Quite right. Shall we?” She nodded, checking their whereabouts in a now-almost-automatic sweep of potential attack points, then looking back up at him. Her eyes were dark with the thrill of the hunt. _Oh, yes, all the wrong lessons._

_tbc_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack learns a history lesson.

His comfortable chair was surrounded by books; books piled on his side table, books at his feet, books to either side of the lounger. A casual viewer could have been excused for thinking Captain Jack Harkness was a bibliophile’s worst nightmare, until that viewer saw that each pile was alphabetized, and grouped according to topic. The individual monographs and countless notebooks he’d found were also carefully placed according to subject, some piles flagged with post-it notes: “further reading;” “cross reference;” “WTF???” Con men and time agents couldn’t afford to be disorganized.

Nor could they afford to be late.

“That, for the moment, is that,” Jack said aloud, checking the time. “If I want to be beautiful for the kids, I need a shower.” He paused for an answer he knew wouldn’t come, then continued. “Not that making myself pretty for those two is going to do me a damned bit of good.”

 _It’s kept you here these past few weeks, not trying to figure out the when and where of whatever planet they dumped you on, he thought. Yeah, but how long does novelty last? You usually dropped someone after a few weeks, too,_ he answered himself. “Oh, for fuck sake, leave it the hell alone!” he snapped at himself.

A brief, pleasant vibration pushed gently at the base of his skull, from the inside. He calmed down. “That’s you, isn’t it, sweetheart? Sorry for the blue language – but we _are_ talking about what those two do to me. ”

Jack waited for something more; the TARDIS had proven to be unusually friendly with him today, helping him (at least he thought she helped him) to find books and leading him to the comfortable cubby in which he’d ensconced himself, so it might not be too much to expect further interaction. Feeling no response, however, he went ahead and put the books back on a teakwood library cart. Time to reshelve. 

That chore done, Jack was just about to leave the library when something occurred to him.

“They took off, as usual, without so much as a tourist map,” he chatted to the air as he turned on his heel and headed back inside. “How much do you want to bet that they’d welcome me particularly warmly if I had some basic tourist information with me when I met them? And here in the library...there should be something in your lovely depths about Lizhbau, if I think hard enough about it, right? Do I have your _modus operandi_ sussed?”

Not completely, not by a long shot, was Jack’s interpretation of the sudden, shocky poke that hit him. He winced, but ignored it and went over to the elegant cherry wood card catalogue cabinet. It took him 10 minutes to winnow the wheat from the chaff, but he found the “Human/First Empire/History/Geosocial” section and fingered through the cards until he found “Cold Paradise: Lizhbau as Pleasure World during the reign of Emperor David.” 

“This should do the trick,” Jack said, “and, lessee...oooo, this one looks intriguing...”

He plucked a second card out: “David’s Justice: When Lizhbau’s Memory Market Fell.” He could never ignore anything with the word ‘memory’ in it.

Jack didn’t open either book until he returned to his room, got his shower and changed clothes. With 20 minutes left before he absolutely, positively, had to leave the ship, he threw himself onto his bed and picked up the book on the Memory Market. _Wonder if that’s the market they took off for,_ he thought, checking the index.

The title of the narrow volume’s second chapter stopped him dead. “The role of Lizhbauan lamia silk in the rise of illicit memory trading.” Jack turned to the chapter.

Lamia silk, it seemed, was the product of the Lizhbauan silkworm analog. Early colonists had discovered the world would nurture Earth-style life without any disruption of its own ecology. In due time, they found the native moth analogs, and their eggs, then noticed the blue and shimmering cocoons. Some scientist-entrepreneur had decided to try farming them. That man’s name wasn’t important, but what happened to him was. 

He’d been safe enough dealing with a few fibres, from individual cocoons, the author wrote. He’d even been safe whilst spinning them into thread: apparently in small quantities the psychoactive nature of the substance was only powerful enough to dissuade predators from eating the chrysalids.

When he wove the stunningly beautiful fibre into actual cloth, however, and handled the resultant material...well, his assistants had found him on the floor, calm and empty, staring somewhere else. One of the assistants tried pulling the cloth from his fists and immediately collapsed as well. After that, investigators used tongs to remove the silk. Separating the scientist from it proved fatal, but they were able to save the assistant, apparently because the chemical receptors in his amigdala and other brain sectors hadn’t been completely infiltrated by the telempathically active chemicals in the silk. 

“God’s orphans,” Jack muttered. He read further.

Word of lamia silk – dubbed that by the horrified investigators, and never officially named anything else – spread quickly. It was just as quickly outlawed, except for purposes of Empire. The book didn’t go into the numerous ways it was undoubtedly adapted for military or medical uses; Jack could imagine half a dozen without breaking a sweat. Instead, it focused on the silk’s underground reputation, and the experiments of foolhardy amateurs. It wasn’t more than a few years, and no more than a few brain-deaths, before they’d refined its pharmaco-empathic properties.

Someone who was exposed to the silk would be lost almost entirely to hallucinations based on his or her own memories; secondarily – and importantly for the developing illicit silk trade – personality patterns became very easy to mine from the compromised brain. They could be recorded, stored elsewhere, poured through, and used.

Spies and saboteurs came to value the silk, when they could get their hands on it, since telempathically shocking a victim and plumbing his memories was a lot cleaner and more accurate than torture or even the most sophisticated truth drugs. 

Drug dealers did their own experimentation, and discovered they, too, could tease a victim’s feelings and memories out, but for different uses. Work the memories, find the most erotic, the happiest, perhaps the most unhappy, then inject them back into a liquified silk distillate. Voila! An emotion drug for those who wanted to vicariously live through others. And of course, there were the victims, amnesiacs who could be retrained and sold on flesh markets. _Why do sentient beings always want to buy and sell each other,_ Jack wondered, turning a page. _Why do humans do it so enthusiastically?_ “Oh hell.”

The story went on. The silk could be manufactured off planet, but never as successfully as under Lizhbau’s climate conditions. And, because most governors were honest, and obeyed the law by suppressing the silk trade, sometimes brutally, Lizhbauan silk was at a premium in the rest of the Empire. Still, it was never completely stamped out. 

And when good governors were succeeded by bad, it flourished. During the regency of the 23rd Governor of Lizhbau, _and that’s the time the Doctor was boasting about bringing us to,_ Jack thought with sudden trepidation, it spread like a virus. Dehde Bohlver was greedy, vindictive and just smart enough to realize he could rule with an iron hand, if his enemies were afraid of being dragged from their beds, gutted of their memories, and either sold at a flesh market or left on a street somewhere as an object lesson to other potential rebels.

It worked, too, until Bohlver’s harsh rule generated more would-be rebels than he could process as silk fodder. He wasn’t smart enough to abide by the warnings of his lieutenants, instead ordering his crews to take them all in, to gut them and manufacture more silk, more drugs, more slaves. The increasingly profligate sweeps took in tourists as well as natives. Eventually, and inevitably, one sweep simultaneously took in tourists whose absence was noted off-world, and enough natives to anger Bohlver’s subject past the point of fear. Riots ensued and the eyes of the emperor turned to Lizhbau.

“The tipping point came when a non-human tourist fought his way into Bohlver’s private chambers, a brain-dead female companion in his arms, and engineered the governor’s capture by rebels,” Jack read aloud. “The alien had no name, but sparked the Silk Rebellion simply with the force of his grief, then disappeared.”

_Oh no._

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit...”

Jack threw the book to the floor and bolted off the bed.

He grabbed his gun from the holster, checking its charge before replacing it in the holster and settling that in and around his shoulder. He’d come aboard with none of his other weapons; no knives, no garrotes, nothing. Only the gun, and as far as the Doctor knew, that was all he had now. 

He considered, then discarded, any thought suiting up further. For all he knew, they could be sitting at the fountain, ready to chew him out for being late ( _but they're not,_ the agent in him whispered.)

The gun would have to do, and Jack thanked his lucky stars that it was fully recharged. He shrugged on his greatcoat, then headed for the front door. 

Just before he left he turned and looked at the walls. “I’ll find them, sweetheart. I hope.”

_tbc_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor and Rose learn some things from a nervous book monger, but make a severe misstep as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to work on the final chapters of this story, and find that posting the early chapters here has been of great help to me. I hope readers continue to find the story thus far interesting. 
> 
> For those wondering about the name Pau and Laowhra give to the Governor's security forces - _Maldad_ \- it's a word that maps out roughly, in First Empire neo-Portuguese, to "Evil Things." People in the city append the name to any official security force, whether that's military or police; at this point in Lizhbau's history, the military and police have largely been suborned into legal thugdom. Hence the nickname. 
> 
> **Edited by** My Best Beloved. 
> 
> **Disclaimer** All characters are the property of the BBC and their respective creators. I own nothing and take no coin. However, I love the Whoniverse, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

The room was dark and claustrophobic, even after Pau Sampaio lit a couple of lamps, but it was quite obviously a parlor of some sort. The furniture was old, but the chairs he waved them to were reasonably comfortable. Rose sat; the Doctor didn’t.

“Suit yourself,” their host told the Time Lord impatiently. “Just stay here. I’m going to talk to the woman who can give you some information. Call her Laowhra.”

“I don’t suppose that’s her real name?” Rose ventured. He looked at her expressionlessly. “Just askin’”

The monger headed off down what was obviously a hall into the rear of the house. The Doctor heard him speak to someone, but when Rose raised her eyebrows, he gave a quick head shake. Apparently even the Doctor’s hearing couldn’t catch the conversation. The voices became increasingly agitated, then Rose heard a woman shout, “You’re a fool, you know that!” After a moment, Sampaio returned to the parlor with her.

She was a slab of a woman, almost as tall as the Doctor. Her dress was at least half a size too small and none too clean, her arms bare and very muscular, Rose noted. Her salt and pepper hair was pulled back from her face, which was hard, and well away from her eyes, which were flat and frightening.

“I’m Laowhra,” she said, looking at the Doctor. “Who are you and why are you here? What do you want to know?”

“I’m the Doctor,” he said. “This is Rose Tyler. We’re here because we were brought here.”

Careful, Doctor, Rose thought, watching her companion closely. She already regretted having followed the book monger inside, indeed was sorry she hadn’t obeyed her impulse to convince the Doctor to go back. _Rose Tyler, you idiot! Why the hell do you dash headlong into these situations when y– oh, stop it. You know why, you do it because it’s what he’d do, and you’d give anything to make him proud of you._

“As to what we wanna know, it’s simple, actually,” the Doctor said, taking up his familiar position, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “Why did Ser Sampaio, here, get his knickers in a twist when we talked to him about this pamphlet?” He held it up. “An’ why did he have it? More to the point, why’d you have a bunch of them tucked into one of your books? And what’re they about? Frankly,” he said, “What I read in here? It sounds a bit unpleasant. An’ I want to know why.” 

“There are only two kinds of people who want to know about the Memory Market ,” Laowhra said slowly. “Relatives of the taken, and Imperial investigators. You two are obviously from off-planet, so you must be investigators.”

“Got it in one!” the Doctor said, sounding delighted. Rose knew what came next.

“Our credentials,” he said, fishing about in a pocket and bringing up their old standby. She wondered what title the psychic paper had shouldered them with this time.

Lauwhra snatched at the identification, peered at it in the uncertain light, then shot a look at the two of them before biting her lip thoughtfully. “They’re investigators alright, Pau. From Earth, no less.” She handed the paper back to the Doctor.

“So that’d make you, what, then? Relatives?” Rose hazarded. “Relatives of the...disappeared.” The Doctor spared an approving glance, and she fought the urge to preen. 

Laowhra scowled, but must have decided to trust them, at least to some extent. She took a deep breath, then let it out and said, “I lost my man. Pau lost his daughter. Mine was taken because he talked too damned much against Bohlver and the silk. So did Pau, but Pau’s girl was beautiful, and the Maldads– ”

“Come again?” Rose asked. 

“Bohlver’s men”

“Oh. Right.”

“The Maldads wanted her. So they took her instead of him.”

“I don’t know whether I’m more afraid that she’s dead, or that she’s not,” the book monger said softly. “If they silk-gutted her, she’s as good as dead, but at least she wouldn’t know what they were doing to her..to...” 

“Did you write the pamphlet?” the Doctor asked gently, all his insouciance gone. Those deep-set eyes were measuring Laowhra and Pau far more closely than the woman had measured them, Rose knew, but with much more compassion than they might realize. 

“I did,” Sampaio admitted. He looked at the floor. “I was a writer – a publisher – once.”

“You’re not now,” the Doctor said. It wasn’t a question. 

“There are no writers now who don’t write exactly what the Governor wants written,” the monger said. 

“That’s not gonna go over well on Earth,” the Doctor said, and Rose heard the gathering storm in his voice, even as he smiled and added, “Y’might not think it, but believe me, the emperor is a proper fiend for freedom of the press.” In the dark room, his face had become a craggy jigsaw of shadow and light, but his eyes were blue slate and his ( _beautiful_ ) mouth was grim.

Lauwhra sounded bitter when she answered. “It hasn’t been noticed on Earth so far, Ser Investigator. Not the shutdowns or the disappearances, or the lamia money that Bohlver and his cronies are raking in. We’ve seen neither hope nor hark of any help. Not until now.” She looked hard at the Doctor, taking in his rangy frame, the militarily harsh simplicity of his dress, the controlled tension in his bearing, then turned to Rose, a skeptical glint in her suddenly-much-more-alive eyes. “And maybe not even now. You’ll pardon me for wondering why you two investigators sound so completely in the dark.”

“It’s just our way of checking you out,” Rose said quickly, before the Doctor could open his mouth again. “No one gets by us without some questioning, and...and you’re not doin’ as well as you think you are. You’re not convincing us that you have anything worth takin’ back to..to the Imperial Court.”

That merited another scowl from Lauwhra, and a frightened look from Sampaio. Rose felt like shivering – even indoors, even in high summer, Lizhbau was like Brighton in October – so she stood up and started to walk around to hide her discomfort and move a little closer to the gas stove in the parlor’s corner.

“Here’s the thing,” she said, borrowing one of the Doctor’s lead-ins, “We don’t know what you know about the silk beyond what you’ve put in that pamphlet – which isn’t a very good call for revolution, by the way; the writing’s all over the place – and unless you give us a rundown of how dangerous the stuff– the situation, I mean, how dangerous the situation is, and where you think everyone’s bein’ taken, I’m afraid I hafta say, I think your wastin’ our time.”

Sampaio sank wearily into one of the cheap armchairs on the other side of the stove. He didn’t look frightened any more. He looked sad, Rose thought. Something started niggling at the back of her mind when she registered that, but she forgot about it when she saw that his partner seemed ready to offer a retort.

Acting more authoritative than she felt, Rose took the two steps necessary to bring her right up in Lauwhra’s face. “If you were this close to the Emperor, and he said he knew nothin’ about silk, or its victims, what would you say?”

The older woman was palpably taken aback, but not so much that she wasn’t going to rise to the challenge. 

“I’d tell him that his father appointed Bohlver and made him swear to keep stamp out lamia silk, if ever it were possible. That it’s hell-cloth. One touch, it burns out your soul. That’ s why it’s banned.” She settled back on her heels and lifted her chin belligerently. “That good enough?”

“It’s a start,” Rose nodded, then stepped back. “Doctor?”

He pushed himself off the wall and straightened up, then fixed Sampaio with one piercing look. “Tell me how your Governor Bohlver made his power grab. Tell me everything.”

Lauwhra looked at him, then at Sampaio. “Go on, Pau. Might as well.”

Something tired moved across the man’s face, and that niggling something which Rose had felt a moment before returned. _Something’s off ,_ she thought, _something’s really, really off._ She stiffened slightly, then made to move closer to the Doctor, intending to catch his eye. _Have to talk to him, ask if he feels it, too._ But she was too far from his vantage point near the door. _Have to talk to him...._

How to do it without giving away her nerves? _Jack would know, brave Jack who wasn’t here to help her be brave–_

Sampaio interrupted her increasingly agitated considerations. He stood up, took up a position next to Lauwhra. “There’d been a number of us who’d been the loyal opposition, after Bohlver ‘temporarily’ suspended the legislature.” He laughed slightly, an unhappy sound. “That lasted all of a few months. He engineered an emergency, a series of bombings that we know his people set up. He did it beautifully– ”

“Not him. That bastard Inverno.” Lauwhra interjected. 

“Yes, yes, Renhald Inverno,” Sampaio agreed distractedly. “Bohlver’s brains. The point is that it got done. He blew up churches and schools in half the working neighborhoods of Abela Fort’leza, made sure that his most troublesome enemies were assassinated and their bodies disposed of in the ‘terrorist bombings.’ Then he found exactly the right someone in Central Imperium to grant the legislative suspension.”

“Let me guess,” the Doctor took up the conversation, without seeming to have interrupted at all. “This Inverno knew how high up he had to go in court to get his waiver, and how low he could go to make certain the action didn’t get noticed by anyone close to the Emperor. See that, Rose? The dangerous ones are always good with bureaucracy.” He turned to her with that hunting smile he’d get when he was very excited, and very angry. Rose’s heart sped up ( _it’s trying to keep up with his double beat, oh, let me catch up, Doctor_ ) and she felt a similar smile on her own face.

Lauwhra smiled, too. “Familiar with court?”

He shrugged. “Familiar with humans.”

“Then you’re ahead of me, Ser Investigator,” she said, heavily. She rolled her shoulders and abruptly seemed to brighten. “As for me, I want to do no more talking unless I have something to wet my throat. What’s your pleasure?”

“Nothing for me, thanks,” the Doctor said. “Rose?”

“Uh...water, please.”

“Don’t drink on the clock, eh? Well, that’s as may be. I’m not on duty. Pau, you want something stronger than water?”

“Not yet,” he said.

“Well, I’ll bring it anyway,” she said.

“I’ll help you,” Sampaio said, with the air of someone who would rather be anywhere than where he was.

“Fine. We’ll be back in a minute,” Lauwhra said. “Ser, Sera, for the love of light, please sit down. You’re making me nervous.” With that, she and Sampaio excused themselves and headed down the hall.

They looked at each other, her eyebrows, battling with his to climb higher, until the Doctor shrugged, and threw himself into the chair Sampaio had vacated. Rose suppressed a smile and found the chair nearest his. Then she remembered her unease.

“What’s botherin’ you, Rose?” 

She winced, then chewed on her lip. “I dunno. But somethin’s–”

“– wrong. Yup.”

She didn’t need to look at him to know he’d felt it, ( _but you’d watch him in the dark, wouldn’t you, Tyler, you sad cow._ ) “So, do we know what it is, then?”

“Nope,” he said, “but it’s time to go. Time to join Jack in the library–” His mouth stayed open, but nothing more came out of it. Ordinarily, she’d have fallen out, and probably have called him a carp. But now – 

“Jack. Oh god, he’s probably waitin’ for us,” she said. “We’ve got to get him, and get back home.” The Doctor didn’t correct her, just nodded tightly.

She was glad she didn’t have to ask either of their ‘hosts’ for a coat, but Rose didn’t want to leave quite so precipitously.

“We should make our goodbyes – be official, yeah?”

“Not a bad idea,” he said, unfolding himself from the chair. “Ser Sampaio, Sera Laowhra? If you’re listenin’, leave the water. Sera Tyler and I have got to go.”

Quicker than Rose expected, the woman strode into the parlor, followed by Sampaio. He was holding something, and looked extremely anxious.

“Well, we’re not going to stop you, I imagine,” Laowhra said. Her left hand was stuffed deep in a pocket of her dress. “Find out anything worthwhile?”

The Doctor looked at the ceiling, then at the Lizhbauan woman. “I think so, Sera. I think the empire will be very interested in this. Do you have communication here? If so, we’ll need to contact you tomorrow, or the next day at the latest. If that’s safe for you.”

For some reason, Laowhra looked away. “You really mean it, don’t you?” she said, turning back to him, her eyes suspiciously bright. “Don’t know whether you’re brave, or stupid. Never mind. If you want to contact us, see Pau down at the market. I’ll see you to the door.”

In the narrow entry way, it was difficult for everyone to maneuver, and Rose found herself backed against a wall inches from the door, Sampaio between her and Lauwhra, who in turn was directly behind the Doctor.

It happened so fast, she didn’t even have time to shout a warning to the Doctor. Laowhra pulled something from her pocket, a narrow tube Rose identified as a dermic jet in the endless moment it took for the woman to jam it into his neck. He jerked in shock and started to turn, just as Rose gasped and grabbed at her neck in shock. Pau Sampaio, eyes wet and ashamed, had efficiently jabbed her with his own jet. 

_How did I get so stupid ,_ she thought, trying to bat the thing out of his hand moments, or hours, after it was too late. _What was in that? Why aren’t my legs working?_ She saw the Doctor try to get to her, knocking Laowhra out of his way easily, but whatever was at work in her system betrayed him as well, transformed his protective lunge into a boneless collapse.

_Don’t you dare hurt him, you bitch,_ she thought muzzily, _stop making him change shape._ She tried to catch him in her arms, but they’d somehow turned to rubber. _Damn...how can I hold him like this?_ Her vision narrowed to a pinpoint and everything went away.

**************

 

“They could have helped us, Lallie,” Sampaio said, stepping back over Rose’s inert form. “And they’re Imperium. What happens now? What happens if the Empire finds out what we’ve done?”

Lauwhra Sampaio looked at her brother-in-law, and wiped her face, scrubbing away any hint of regret. “I’ll risk that. The Imperium’s on Earth, but the Maldads are here.”

“Using that...that _poison_ on someone,” the book monger said, dropping the jet and rubbing his hands against his pant legs. “Lallie...god, what happened to us?”

He fell back before her sudden fury. “Nothing happened to us, Pau! It happened to Merritt and it happened to Luisa, and this – _this!_ This will get them back for us!”

“We’re as bad as they are. We’re worse, we’re whoring for Bohlver, handing him people–”

Under different circumstances, the Doctor might have winced in sympathy when Laowhra slapped Sampaio. “Shut your mouth, Pau,” she hissed, low and intense. “I know what I’m doing, and it makes me sick of my own reflection, but I will get Merritt back. I _will._ Do you understand?”

With an effort, she composed herself. “Help me drag them back into the parlor. I’ll let the bastards know we’ve got them.”

***************

 

In Abela Fort’leza’s market, the shops were locked, and the stalls were struck. The cold wind whipped clouds across the face of the nearest moon. Jack shoved his hands into his greatcoat pockets, and felt more alone than he had for years.

_(to be continued)_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose and the Doctor dream quite different dreams, but travel to the same place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (To all those who know the Doctor's history much better than I do, please accept my heartfelt wishes that I have retrieved a few of his memories well, and used the clues I found in tales of One, Three, Four, Five, and Seven.) As always, I am grateful to the BBC and its various creative staff and contractors for creating these characters. I only dream with them, and take nothing except love from them.

“That man’s ruining you!”

Rose shook her head, partly to negate her mother’s accusation and partly to clear it. Something was in her eyes – 

“Mum, that’s just not true. He loves me.”

Jackie threw herself into her favorite chair and glowered at her. “That’s rich. Sweetheart, he’s on the dole, his band kicked him out – great artist, my eye – and he takes your pay packet every week.” Jackie tugged at her leather jacket. “And he’s always taking you away in that...that contraption of his.”

_What on earth is she talking about? Has she got at the port again?_ Rose narrowed her eyes... _damn, something’s in them..._ she shook her head again. Couldn’t think if she couldn’t see. “Mum, Jimmy’s got no car, ‘less you count that rubbish Vauxhall of his dad’s.”

“Pffft – Jimmy Stones. I give that – “ and Jackie was up now, off the chair, across the console room ( _what?_ ) clicking her fingers in Rose’s face “– for Jimmy Stones. At least when you were with him I could come ‘round, check on you.”

“Mum, what – ” Rose was bewildered. The livingroom looked right, sounded right, even smelled right; too much White Shoulders battling with the tired smell of take away in the kitchen. Just like the day she came home and ended up crying on her mum’s shoulder. She’d moved back in that very – this very – night. ( _Time’s like that,_ a voice reminded her. _You lot; you always forget the end can come before the beginning._ )

Rose took a quick look around; everything still seemed right; telly up against the far wall, curtains whispering in the slight draft – 

“Mum, did you leave the door open?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s the ship does that – when it displaces the air, the air has go somewhere, doesn’t it?”

She twisted behind her to catch a glimpse of him ( _him?_ Doc– ) “Jimmy?”

“No, sweetheart. The Doctor. He’s the one loves– ”

“What?”

( _Rose? Where are you?_ )

The console had been quiet, but when she heard his voice, it started getting restive. Then She started to glow, and move, just the littlest bit.

“Who’s your friend, sweetheart?” Mum had shucked the leather coat, but kept fishing in her goodie pockets, eventually bringing out the screwdriver.

“Who? You mean Her? The TARDIS? Mum, I’m not sure I’m Her friend.”

“Nonsense! You told me She was alive, so She must like you, dear.” Jackie came over and dropped a kiss on her head, (Rose heard wind rushing somewhere) “I mean, he wouldn’t lie about his ship. Didn’t he tell you?” She frowned. “ _He_ does, God knows. Seen the way he looks at you, haven’t I?”

Rose’s bewilderment was becoming nervous anger. “Mum, stop it. I don’t know who you’re talkin’ about. I just came over to talk about...about...and you’re goin’ on about the TARDIS – I thought you didn’t want me to go with – ”

“Not Jimmy,” Jackie said patiently. “Don’t you remember? You couldn’t forget those eyes, could you?”

( _Rose, can you...Rose, don’t go..._ )

It hit her somewhere just under the ribs, something like a kick and something like the burn of a sudden flush from somewhere farther down.

“Oh.” This wasn’t where she should be. But she still couldn’t see – 

“That’s it, sweetheart,” she heard her mother say, but Jackie was flowing away from her. She heard the wind, and the console rotor pushed and pulled at time.

“Doctor? _Didn’t he tell me, what, Mum?_ she thought. _Mum, what do you know that I don’t?_

“Doctor?”

( _I’m coming._ )

****************

 

Unlike Rose, the Doctor knew what was happening to him. Centuries of study, training and bad planning on his part had left him able to recognize any number of different types of drug, machine or disease-induced hallucinations from the inside.

Unfortunately, that hadn’t helped him much. He hadn’t had enough warning to employ any of the physical tricks rendered possible by Gallifreyan physiology, and polished over the years in fruitless efforts to avoid more bouts of his own stupidity.

He still had time enough to ameliorate the affects; stiffen his psychic defenses at least a bit, slow his cardio-pulmonary systems enough to slow the lamia’s adsorption by a precious few seconds – more than enough time to reach out for Rose...

...oh....

“You simply must improve your grammar, child!” 

Dorothea stood in front of him, chatting with one of the Ark’s human Guardians, and he couldn’t be certain she was paying attention. It annoyed him, but she was a spunky little creature, quite as interesting as his Susan _...Pity I can’t stay. I have to look for Jo,_ he mused, looking at her with affection. 

He shook his head to clear it, and his white locks thickened, curled a bit, darkened a bit. _Jo means well, sweet thing, but look where it’s gotten her this time! Taken by the Mutants, right when I have to convince the Marshal that I can fix the particle reversal apparatus..._

No. Wait. It wasn’t Jo. She’d gazed at him with that delightfully wide-eyed and unfocused intensity, and said she had something to tell him; he’d just known she was going to marry some fool, that she was re-entering mundane life.

Wait. 

He listened. He listened, heard his own hearts, and the wind (or was that blood coursing through his veins and arteries? It was gone before he could identify the source.) This was not the right place, and it wasn’t Jo that needed going after.

Well, if it wasn’t Jo, it had to be ( _Rose_ ) Sarah. 

_Oh, Sarah. My Sarah Jane,_ he thought. “You can’t come,” he said, not looking at her, and wondering why he didn’t just throw her in their lordly faces. _You know, you coward._ He had to do it before she– _go after her, before she gets herself shot, before she goes back to her aunt..._ he adjusted the scarf, grabbed his hat, and made ready to chase after Sarah Jane, just now whisking around a corner, intent on following Harry. Good man, Harry, should have talked him into staying a bit longer--

No.

_Not Sarah Jane, not Harry, a trick of the damned drug,_ he snapped at himself. _No more than it was Dodo,_ he realized. _Come on, man._

He heard people talking, their voices coming through in unintelligible bursts, and focused on them. _Come on, you’ve got the ears for it,_ he thought, deliberately forcing himself to think slowly. That was one trick. Now to try for Rose again....

“Rose? Where are you?” No one answered, and it was getting foggy. He shook his head and cursed in Gallifreyan. Damned pea-soupers. There was absolutely no chance he could find a fruit stall to buy an orange for Leela. Not in this section of Victorian London, certainly not after dark with this disease-ridden fog closing in _...and we have to get to Li H’sen Chang’s performance. Need to get to Greel before he sucks her life from her. Stage people, honestly._

There, finally, the mist was dissipating. Why on earth it should be in the Council chambers....he looked about for her, needed to say– 

“Goodbye Leela. I’ll miss you too, savage.”

Wait. Wrong. Rose, he had to try to reach Rose, not Leela. He knew he was close to her. 

But she never wanted to be close, at least not in that damned autocratic first regeneration. Paris, now, that was different.

_You ran through the city, holding my hand and pretending to be young for me, though you were far too dangerous to love ...besides, you were the one who left. You left, didn’t you? She left, didn’t she ...._

“You’re back from E-Space, Lady President?” She was covered in blood, and greasy dark smoke from the fires in the valleys outside the city – He shut his eyes, no, he wouldn’t think of her gone, couldn’t bear the memory of her eyes, couldn’t listen again while she ordered – 

He heard the wind again, and his blood, and his hearts. The voices faded in and out in a most annoying fashion. He hated being annoyed, almost as much as he hated other people being annoyed with him. Couldn’t be helped, though, not with Tegan’s temper. Not that he didn’t deserve it sometimes. He didn’t blame her; it wasn’t like Adric, so youthfully smug about his own mathematical abilities. He checked the celery. It was still there.

Adric wasn’t ( _I’m so sorry_ ) and even Nyssa was angry at him.

Peri snarled at him, and he snarled back...no. Not him, he wasn’t him, would never be him again if he could possibly help it.

The wind rushed. 

“Come on, Professor,” she said, hoisting her pack. Oh dear, it was probably full of Nitro-Nine. “Ace...” he called, but she ran on in front of him, and he sighed. Best that he let her go to the Prydonians. A wonderful chance for her.

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” He looked around and there she was, in the church.

He hadn’t realized her eyes were so huge. He touched her face.

_I’ve always loved the burn of human skin, yes, and the burn of salt tears as well. I’ve never seen her cry like this before,_ and he felt his own anger drown in her tears. 

“Just–” he stopped for an unnoticeable moment, astonished at the pull he felt toward the gravity well she’d suddenly become. “Say you’re sorry.”

No. Wrong. He couldn’t do that. She wasn’t blood. 

Not blood. Only blood can call to blood, _and my blood are all_ (safely) _gone_ (killer, damned remnant), _and she’ll be safe,_ he thought.

Not with any others, not with any of them, sweet and brave and strong and stupid and brilliant and loving and helpful and comforting as every one of them were. No matter how they piqued his curiosity, challenged him to be better, occasioned his affection, and even love. No matter how they came into his hearts. 

And certainly not her. The gravity well beckoned with this one, no time to understand, ( _no reason, just fall_ ) he simply had to– 

“Run!”

Wrong. 

No. Right. 

( _Stop!_ )

He caught sight of her hair; gold in the dark, fanning out across her face. The wind rushed higher, and the voices threatened something...movement? He had to get to her, and she was retreating from him.

“Rose, can you...” his voice trailed off. His stomach felt hollow. She was going to stay with that mewling git of a boyfriend? “Rose, don’t go.”

She turned her head.

“Doctor?”

Yes. Right. ( _No!!_ )

“Doctor?”

The wind rushed higher, and he felt himself being lifted, pulled, swinging between two bodies, two worlds, then tossed into some place else.

“I’m coming.”

Time to wake up.

************

 

Jack could barely breathe by the time he’d pelted back to the TARDIS and shut the door behind him. 

“Sweetheart, you have to help me.”

The rotor moved, with a sound of wind.

_(to be continued)_


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tactics, at least, if not strategies, are employed by nearly all involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer** As always, my deep yearning to play with the BBC's characters avails me naught but more yearning. They'll never be mine. I own nothing and take no coin.

"These two — what are they?"

"They claimed to be Imperium, Tenante."

"Where's their identification?"

"Around here somewhere...these pockets are...wha...ah. Here it is." Pau Sampaio hung back as Laowhra rifled through the unconscious man's pockets, but he knew Lt. Isobel Fahrar had marked his presence the moment she walked into the house. If he tried to leave, he knew the two Maldad aides standing like obelisks behind her would frog-march him out back and leave him to the dubious mercies of her squad.

The off-world girl lay sprawled across her compatriot's legs. All he could see of her face was her mouth and one pink cheek under a spray and tangle of blonde hair, but she looked like any of Luisa's school friends. Her lips were parted slightly, like those of a dreaming child.

One who would not wake of her own volition. Somewhere in that pretty head was a mind buffeted by its own memories, scrambling for purchase and not finding it. Well before the lamia left her system, she'd be transported — he had no idea where, had no wish to — and there was every chance she'd be touched by the silk. Then she'd be gone.

"What do you mean?" Confusion made Laowhra's anger shrill. "I didn't lie. That wallet held Imperial identification. I saw it with my own eyes!"

Fahrar cut across Laowhra's protestations. "No," she said with crisp precision. "You saw a psychic fraud. This is some sort of telepathically or empathically-imprinted paper. You saw what they wanted you to see. I'm not surprised. No Imperial agent would announce himself as openly as you say this one did."

Pau's sister-in-law shrugged, doing her best not to look discomfited. Her height and imposing mass helped a bit. "I can only tell you what they told me,Tenante."

"Well..." Fahrar looked thoughtful. "They were curious, and they are obviously off-worlders." She looked at Sampaio briefly, and with distaste, then back to Laowhra. "They're not agents, but their curiosity isn't welcome, no matter their allegiance. You were right to contact us."

Laowhra nodded. She pursed her lips, and Sampaio knew she was working up the courage to ask about Merrit and Luisa. "We were told...we were told that our relatives could be exchanged for help in tracking the insurgents." Laowhra said nothing more, apparently deeming reticence the best tactic after her initial comment.

"For tracking insurgents, yes," the Maldad commander said, plainly annoyed. "These aren't insurgents."

"But —"

"But what? You're not seriously suggesting your actions merit anything but granting you continued freedom, are you?" Fahrar had lovely eyes, very large in her olive-skinned face. Her expression rendered them ugly.

"Then proof," Laowhra said quickly. "Proof they're still alive. What if that's all I ask for...a holo, a message?"

Fahrar looked at her two pet informers. It was obvious that she thought Sampaio, now a portrait of cringing tension, was an unpleasant necessity, but she seemed grudgingly impressed with his sister-in-law's determination. "I can do this. I'll include a request for verification in my report. If you two stay in line, I'll let you know what they tell me. Get me a few things, I'll see about holos. If — _if_ — you don't push me, I'll also back your request for their release. Once we have Nicola or some of his people in custody."

That was too much for Pau. "No! That's not what we were promised! They told us we just had to get some information!"

"Shut up. Collaborators do what they're told," Fahrar snapped. "Be grateful you're dealing with me and not with some of my colleagues. "

She turned to her human obelisks. "These two go back to headquarters. Call for the carryall and get them into it. I'll have them probed and sorted by dawn. If we don't need them, give them to the silk and move them over to Holding."

"Aye, Tenante." They executed quick salutes before one headed to the back door to call for the cage transport . The other approached the two victims. "Do we search them further?"

"No need," Fahrar said. "They're out cold. And I want to handle the rest of this in more comfortable surroundings."

Her order prevented the non-com from checking the Doctor more thoroughly than Laowhra had. He didn't find the Doctor's screwdriver.

"You. Laowhra."

The tall woman bristled at Fahrar's casual use of her first name, but she said nothing. The commander waved her over and handed her a thin envelope. "This is for you."

"We've told you — " Laowhra began, but she stopped after gauging the look in the other woman's eyes, and wordlessly took the package.

Three squad members made their way into the living room, and stood over their two unknowing charges. "This one's pretty," one of them said, looking at the girl speculatively.Pau felt sick.

\-------------------

The TARDIS pulsed around Jack with a disconcerting sub-vocal 60 cycle hum. She was unhappy, and it set his teeth on edge.

_Darlin', if it's any consolation, I'm willing to do anything you suggest to find them,_ he thought, then switched gears and spoke aloud. "First things first, though. We're going to have to get away from where we are, and set down someplace else. I hope you don't mind me doing the honors, since the designated driver's not here."

It had been a long night, and a longer day for Jack. He'd waited in that damned market until the cold drove him back to the TARDIS. On the way back, he'd almost convinced himself they'd simply crossed paths. They'd be in the console room waiting for him. Rose would be apologetic — maybe she'd gotten sick, maybe she'd changed her mind about tea. The Doctor would jape at him, maybe warn him about staying out late. Maybe he'd say they'd decided to leave Lizhbau, and he was lucky he hadn't been left behind —

But the console room was empty when he threw open the door. He checked the data banks for Lizhbau's sunrise, set his watch, and spent the next few hours sleepless in his room, staring at the ceiling. When the watched beeped, he'd thrown his coat on and headed out to start his search in the last place he thought they had been.

But asking about Rose and the Doctor in the market had been spectacularly unsuccessful. Not only had no one admitted to seeing them, Jack's questioning of merchants and market-goers had netted him some unfriendly attention from the quasi-military thugs who stood around or swaggered about the area. When two of them started moving his way, pushing past some of the formally-togged night market revellers, Jack had taken it as a reminder that discretion was going to be the better part of valor, at least temporarily.

He'd excused himself from the fruitless conversation he'd been having with a nervous vendor, and tried leaving the market at a casual pace. Unfortunately, while those tailing him didn't have much finesse, they were tenacious. He hadn't been surprised, but he had been disappointed. Eventually he'd taken to his heels in an effort to shake them, but he didn't think he had by the time he'd thrown open the door and dashed up the console room ramp.

"So here I am," he said disgustedly. "Not a damned thing to show for my trouble." He'd escaped capture, but he had no doubt his questions had flagged him, and tied him to his disappeared loved ones—

—Friends. His disappeared friends. Jack wiped his mouth with one hand, and didn't notice how the TARDIS reacted to that slip.

So. He took a deep breath and mentally regrouped. Sitrep was the first priority, and one he should have reviewed last night. He might have left the Agency behind, but he shouldn't have forgotten the drill.

Subjects: Rose and the Doctor — not at the rendezvous point, missing for close to a day. Both trouble magnets, on a world, and at a time, where trouble was overdue to erupt anyway. Take it as a given they'd fallen foul of the authorities.  
Fact: Trouble could mean serious or fatal mental injuries and subsequent bodily death or slavery, making rescue not only a matter of necessity, but probably a two part operation; retrieve their bodies, then their minds.

Fact: Time was of the essence _and wouldn't the Doctor give you the fish eye if you'd said that where he could hear you?_ Jack snickered involuntarily, then sobered. _But it is_ , he acknowledged silently, _it is._

Concern: Could he do it alone? Answer; absolutely not. He needed information on Lizhbau's security forces, jails and prisons (public and black op), maps, timetables, news reports, current gossip, everything that could help him track the two of them. He had none of that, save what he could find in the library. _That'll help, no question, but it's not enough,_ he thought, before pushing past it to the next sitrep nugget.

Personnel: He had no backup, no on-the-ground agents to help him. But he might be able to use one pool of potentially sympathetic contacts.

The resistance must be active, because the merchants' unease and the aggressive nature of the thugs — what were they called? Maldads? — were signs of a jumpy administration, not one whose oppression had successfully suppressed anything.

"And the best place to find the resistance is in bars," he said aloud. He dug into his coat pocket, pulling out the Lizhbau tourist brochures and maps he'd stuffed into them what now seemed like days ago. He scanned the map first, then fanned through the two or three other pieces from the library.

"No...no... _yesss!_ " Jack's grin was feral as he sat on the jump seat to get more familiar with _"Places They Don't Want You to Visit: A Planetrekker Publication."_

"Bless you, you little muck-raking Zagat wannabes," he muttered, poring over the chatty and only somewhat skeevy brochure. "There's always a market for the seedy underbelly of tourist towns." It only took him a moment to scope out what he needed.

"There we go...dives. Dives with at least two easily-accessed exits, mind you, in case I get a negative review from the people I'll want to make friends with."

That could happen. He'd been worked over more than once on missions — seriously worked over, land-in-casualty worked over, week-in-hospital worked over — when people he wanted to work with thought he was working with people they _didn't_ want to work with. He really couldn't afford to have that happen this time. It wasn't just a mission depending on his continued health today, it was the Doctor and Rose.

The risk couldn't be helped, though. Jack had long since learned that you accepted the chance of injury and death, then did your damnedest to minimize their possibility. He called it the big ol' bus attitude: you could walk out any door and be hit by a big ol' bus, but you couldn't stay inside to avoid it.

"So, what do you say? How about a trip to the nasty side of town?" he asked the TARDIS, trying to keep the trepidation he felt about piloting Her out his voice. He put one hand on the console, inwardly bracing for whatever shock She might deign to give him as a response. Instead, he felt a pleasant vibration. _Thanks, sweetheart,_ he sent Her way.

When he moved to start the process, he could only hope he and She together could take Her from the nicely isolated park area the Doctor had landed them in that morning, and deposit them smoothly in an alley behind — he stopped and checked first his brochure, then a city map he brought up on one of the TARDIS' screens — "Cheap Eats Inside."

"Catchy name. I'm sure the the clientele is equally memorable." _Damn! Can't I shut up, just once?_ Jack knew his own foibles well; he talked to himself to calm his nerves. Knowing that, however, simply annoyed him more. He grimaced, and ploughed both hands through his hair before making some final adjustments to navigation.

"Alright partner, be gentle with me," he said, lips thinning as he waited what seemed like a lifetime for the rotor to move. When it did, groaning and grinding quite as satisfactorily for him as it ever did for the Doctor, he was simultaneously relieved and elated. 

Jack didn't know how long they would be in the Vortex, and he didn't know if it was safe to leave the console, but he had to. "I'll be right back," he promised the air, then ran down the hall to where he prayed his room would be. There it was, a plain wooden door — how the TARDIS could present him with the reality of oak panels he didn't even want to guess — with a lock he suspected wouldn't keep the Doctor from entering if he chose. Inside was the exceedingly spare room of a man who still believed he was a soldier, but loved comfort. His bed was plain, but broad and welcoming, his dresser equally plain, but deep and built to carry lots of interesting things in its drawers.

Down under his shirts and socks in the bottom drawer, to the back...there they were.

Jack had been determined, since coming aboard relatively unarmed and immediately plunging into trouble with his new teammates, to even their odds beyond the Doctor's admittedly remarkable escape skills and Rose's gut bravery. He'd seen at Albion Hospital just how little the Doctor cared for weapons, so Jack had wasted no time or precious good will trying to convince him otherwise.

Instead he'd waited for the right moment, on some planet they'd visited shortly after his arrival. The Doctor had been more interested in watching Rose play with a troupe of pixie-like children than in keeping tabs on an undoubtedly unwanted tag along. Jack had made some excuse to leave, and easily discovered the local munitions shop. He'd found and bought the items he wanted, headed back to the TARDIS and stashed them. No one had been the wiser when he returned to the Doctor's side in time to clap along with the Time Lord and a small group of fascinated natives as Rose and the children ended their unplanned performance.

Now Jack went through the arsenal - still far too small, he thought with regret - making some quick choices and stowing them in strategically placed inner-lining pockets of the great coat. He re-checked his gun's safety, then doffed the coat to put on a more efficient shoulder holster. Once the gun was in place, he slid its extra clips, and a few more surprises, into places even a determined pat down shouldn't catch. He shrugged his coat back on, feeling better for the new weight underneath. The Doctor might not like guns, but he wasn't the Doctor and he sure as hell didn't expect to rescue his companions without firepower.

He made it back to the console room just as the TARDIS shuddered to a stop. Checking one of the outside view screens, he breathed another sigh of relief. "Lady, you can drive better without me, I swear." They had materialized in an almost impassably narrow alley, so short it was less a passage way than an alcove. It opened onto a debris strewn brick-paved rear yard, with the TARDIS door just catey-corner from an overflowing garbage skip. It was going to smell delightful outside those doors, Jack just knew it.

"No one ever said it'd be easy," he told himself, and felt the 60 cycle hum surge again, vibrating his bones. Nothing for it but to go fishing for drunks with information, and hope he got to the resistance on his own terms. With a shake of his head and a repositioning of his shoulders, with a broad smile on his face and cold determination in his eyes, Captain Jack Harkness stepped out of the TARDIS, and headed for the bar.

\------------------------------

The carryall was just about twice the size of a generous Victorian Age steamer trunk, but only half as comfortable, the Doctor realized, as he forced more of the lamia out of his system. He focused on the discomfort, which helped keep the drug at bay. He wasn't tied — he spared a second to thank fate for providing him with over-confident captors — and, without elbowing the still unconscious Rose ( _oh god Rose, still be there for me_ ) more than three or four times ( _please wake up and snap at me for elbowing you Rose, please wake up_ ) he was able to snake his right hand down to his pocket. No one noticed. After dumping them unceremoniously in the carryall, their frustratingly unseen handlers had manhandled it out of Sampaio's house and onto a flitter. They had thrown some sort of tarp over the thing, which prevented him from getting a better look at the situation, but did protect him from discovery as he moved about.

He listened carefully, gauging the sounds of traffic and passers by. Those were quickly drowned out by the sound of machinery and klaxons, by which he guessed the squad was traveling further into the industrial zone, near some factory. As the cacophony swelled in the unseen landscape beyond the tarp, he activated his screwdriver. One quick jiggle to get it to the right setting, and the latch to the carryall door snapped open without anyone on or next to the flitter even noticing. Now that he knew he could get it open, he pulled it shut again and slid the screwdriver back in his pocket. Wouldn't do to alert anyone to his conscious state when they pulled off the tarp. He had to be patient at this point.

The Doctor was used to waiting for the right time to act, but doing it while pretzeled around Rose was more difficult than he had expected. Her breath came and went on his neck, as her head fell against his upper chest, and he was uncomfortably aware of his own flesh each time she breathed. Her hair whispered along his cheek and he could smell it. _Focus, you hormone-addled git_ he raged at himself, without much success. _Focus, or the lamia'll have you back in no time at all._

By the time the flitter slowed and settled, in some busy courtyard by the sound of it, he had regained enough control to continue planning. What he hoped was that whoever commanded this group — he thought he'd heard the name Fahrar — would leave the squad momentarily, expecting them to move the prisoners to a cell. Once they did that, with any luck they'd leave it there and head to barracks, and he'd be free to climb out unnoticed. He figured on having a window of no more than five to eight standard minutes, if he was lucky, to get Rose and himself free before Fahrar arrived.

"What you got under the tarp, boys?" The voice was gravelly and alcohol-sodden, but assured. He knew the type; a career non-com with a drinking problem. Some higher-up was fond enough of him to give him a sinecure where he couldn't hurt anything. Fantastic; this type just wanted to get his job done with a maximum of speed and a minimum of effort. That usually meant a paucity of attention, too.

"Just a couple the Tenante wants to go over." That was one of the squad members. "You got a spare cell?"

"They worth anything?"

"There a pretty bint along with some big-eared lad. He's probably worth nothing, but she'll fetch a good price," the squad member said. The Doctor marked that voice for later. "But we can't do anything to 'em until Tenante Termagant has her go."

"Oh, well, anything the Tenante wants, the Tenante gets," the older voice grumbled. "Alright. Take 'em down to 42. That's big enough for the two of them, and her and her chair when she's ready."

The carryall lurched as squad members pulled it off the flitter. The Doctor heard a door open, and then stopped thinking about much except his shoulder and his nose, both of which collided with the carryall's side as the Maldads hauled it awkwardly into some building. _That's my nose bloodied for sure_ he thought, dismayed, just as he and Rose were dropped without ceremony onto the floor of Cell 42.

"Should we check on them?" a younger voice asked a bit diffidently.

"What do we look like, babysitters?"

There was no answer amidst the bustle and rattle that signaled that their captors were leaving the cell. He waited, counting out two very long standard minutes while their footsteps retreated. When the door slammed again, he moved

 

_tbc_...


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack gets his ducks in a row, and waits to see who mows them down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** My Best Beloved, who edited, and included a handy hint about shot glasses - I used his comment in its entirety, for he is gifted with words.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As always, the Doctor, and the Whoniverse, are the property of the BBC. I bear only love for them, and thank all and sundry for allowing me to play here.

Jack coughed involuntarily as he entered “Cheap Eats Here.”

_Why can’t one dive, in the whole of space and time, avoid smelling of piss, cigarettes and stale beer,_ he thought, readjusting his smile while he loosened his shirt collar. It was time to go to work.

As a time agent, he’d had basic training in most of the humanish root languages, at least the ones that had survived Earth’s cyclical civilisation-ending events. He definitely knew neo-Portuguese, because anyone who’d worked assignments in the First Empire got nowhere without it. Still, he was grateful for the TARDIS’ linguistic enhancements.

Not that he needed them at the moment. The hum of conversation fell away raggedly as the clientele took in his presence. The silence wasn’t – quite – hostile, but judging by the attitude of the hard-faced and threadbare men comprising the majority of his potential audience, only weariness precluded that.

Jack wasn’t surprised; he’d chosen this bar for just that reason. He wasn’t going to find unhappy citizens in upscale dining locales, that was for damned sure. As unobtrusively as possible he marked the back exit and confirmed to his own satisfaction that the back bar area was easily accessible, too. No windows, but that wasn’t really a surprise.

Without seeming to pay attention to the watchful bar patrons, Jack moved toward the bar. He found and slid onto a stool, then caught the bartender’s eye. “D’you have ouskash?”

“How much you want?” the woman said, her initial flat-eyed gaze brightening slightly as she took in the totality of Captain Jack Harkness.

“How much will five credits get me?” he asked.

“Two shots.”

“Here’s 20,” he said. He hadn’t the slightest intention of drinking all the shots that he'd bought, but it was always good to keep a herd of glasses in front of you in places like this. For one thing, onlookers tended to assume you were a drunk waiting to happen, always a useful misapprehension. For another, you could make friends by handing out the extra drinks. And a shot glass was an effective little weapon; pitched hard into the average goon's forehead, it could dissuade him for a moment or two.

For the next 15 minutes he established himself, making sure others noticed him tossing two shots back in quick succession, then nursing the third for another 10 minutes. Now for the second step; time to look sad. He stared morosely at the top of the bar, and waited.

“So what’s got you down, Ser Serious?” The bartender smiled at him. She had adjusted her tunic so that it pulled tight across her breasts.

“You don’t want to know,” he said, knowing she would.

“Try me.”

Jack finished the last of his third shot, and grabbed for the fourth. “I’m four systems away from where I started, down 20,000 credits and my ticket home because I believed some bastard’s story about easy living on Lizhbau, and I’m trying to figure out how to get off world with more in my wallet than pocket lint. That good enough for you?”

“Someone told you Lizhbau was good living?” The bartender snorted.

Jack shrugged, putting the fourth shot back on the bar untouched. “The bastard told me a lot of tourists on Lizhbau were looking for companionship.”

“Oh. Fancied yourself a bit of cowboy, eh?” She eyed him openly. “You got a license?”

“No.”

Now the woman laughed, gravel in her throat. “You tried to work without a license? In _this_ town? Boy, they raise ‘em stupid where you come from.”

“Yeah? Well they raise them mean here,” he said. “I tried to register uptown, and damn near got my backbone redesigned by those gorillas you’ve got as police here. What’re they called, Maldads? They’re bastards, too.” Jack turned back to his review of the bar, slackening his jaw just the slightest. “Told me to get out of town or get silked, whatever the hell that means. Swear to god.” Then he allowed himself an unwilling laugh. “Guess I can’t blame you for laughing, though. My ma’d do the same.”

He waited a second, then looked up. “Say, what’s your name?”

For a moment, her eyes narrowed. Then she laughed. “You trying to keep in practice?”

“Oh, probably. You mind?”

“Not in the least. I’m Hilda. Hilda Ghildau. You?”

“Captain Jack Harkness, at your service,” he said, letting the smile blaze as he shook her hand.

A bullet-headed regular at the other end of the bar shouted in Hilda’s direction. He caught Jack’s eye and scowled, then held up an empty stein.

“Hold on, I gotta pull a couple of brews. Be right back,” she said. He watched her grab the mug from the man, fill it and hand it back with a brief conversation. She looked over the man’s head to Jack and grinned.

Jack was satisfied; she was on the hook, if only so she could laugh at a rube off-worlder, and maybe take him home for a romp later.

He looked at his watch. This was the frustrating part. He desperately wanted to move, to act – simply to scream out, ask for answers, for help. But baldly asking Hilda or one of her customers would silence them and probably earn him a one way ticket to the street, courtesy of people who wouldn’t mind roughing him up. _Patience, patience ... better an hour’s preparation than a lifetime of regret,_ he reminded himself with one of his old instructor’s bromides.

If he wanted to save Rose and the Doctor from whatever the hell they’d fallen into, he needed to avoid panic whilst getting his ducks – general information, plus an indirect and non-threatening call for help from potentially sympathetic natives – in a row. He was reasonably sure they weren’t dead _(yet)_ , not judging by past adventures. He refused to think about the gut-wrenching passage he’d read in the history book.

Two hours later, he’d drunk one more shot, handed a couple more to some newly-acquired bar buddies, and wandered off to the head, twice, glass in hand, to dispose of the rest and get a better lay of the land. He’d chatted and pleaded ignorance, and asked for directions, and made jokes at his own expense, and learned as much about Abela Fort’leza as one could in apparent drunken conversation.

He’d shaken his head at the vagaries of the bureaucrats who wouldn’t grant his license, routed that conversation into complaints about the Maldads, been shocked about the rotten laws that made them untouchable, disgusted and frightened at what they liked to do with young working women, disbelieving and horrified about the disappearances.

Jack knew when to break the conversation up with a song, or a quick peck on Hilda’s cheek, with another round of the rot-gut house ouskash; but he always steered the conversation back to what he needed to know, including the location of what seemed to be the city’s main prison, the number of Maldads holding it and Bohlver’s adjacent palace, court schedules and such.

When he caught Hilda looking oddly at him, he abandoned the various matters at hand and went back to flirting with her full time. He was pleased with the results; in addition to cementing his reputation as a charming, slightly self-pitying loser with the men who paid attention, he appeared to have won the right to a night’s attention from to Hilda. He could use that.

He hadn’t the slightest intention of bedding her, _(Why’s that, bright boy? You think you have a chance with either of them? Is that why you want to rescue them?)_ but if his information fish was successful, he might have to look for help. Bartenders often knew the kind of help he’d be looking for, so keeping on her good side was good policy –

“ – you hear me? You want another before last call?”

Hilda touched his shoulder proprietorially as he brought himself back to the present. The place was still crowded, but a few patrons were starting to grab for their coats. At least those who weren’t in that sodden condition that was one room-whirl from unconsciousness.

“M’good, thanks,” he told her. “Closing up soon?” The bullet-headed regular who’d scowled at him earlier was still down at the end of the – no, wait, he wasn’t, he was three seats closer. And he was looking at Jack and Hilda.

_Mother of pearl, he isn’t her man, is he?_ Jack had planned to pull her closer to him, but changed his mind. “If you’ve got something resembling caffeine ... I’m feeling a little the worse for wear, y’know?”

“Sure thing, cowboy.” The bartender ruffled his hair as she turned away, and he felt a split second of irritation. It was drowned in a rush of adrenaline when he saw Hilda give an all-but-invisible nod, apparently to no one in particular. _Should have seen that coming,_ he thought. _Here we go ...._

One of the previously-sodden table dwellers got up and wandered over to the bar, taking a seat next to Bullet Head. The seat closest to Jack. Out of the corner of his eye, the Captain saw a second man cross the dirty floor from the other direction, walking purposefully around tables toward the bar. Toward him, he realised with the usual uncomfortable mix of elation and dread that always came over him at the engage point of any mission. Was this going to go well, or would he have to pay for help with contusions?

No matter. When locals coalesced like this on the new guy, they had things to find out, or hide. Either way, he was very close to some possible help. If he didn’t get killed. He smiled at Bullet Head, who returned the smile with an unblinking stare. So did the man beside him. Tall, where Bullet Head was squat, and with clothing that, while worn, didn’t look like workingman’s wear.

“Hey, you.” From his left, an unfriendly baritone grunt.

“Yeah?” Jack rolled his shoulders and extended his hand as he swivelled on the bar stool. Keep a hand out for friendship, and to slap down any bladed or projectile weapon ... “Captain Jack Harkness. What can I do for you?”

“You talk a lot,” the man said. He was short and skinny _(That voice came from this guy?)_ , although Jack amended that to ‘lean and muscled’ when he got a closer look at the man’s arms. He also had pale brown eyes, a tight throat, and the unmistakable air of someone who wanted to get into a fight. Not good.

“Yeah, my ma always said my gob was big,” Jack said. He kept the smile on as he stood up. Let Short and Mean notice his four-inch height advantage.

“You also ask a lot of questions,” Tall Boy said from behind him. He’d gotten off the stool next to Bullet Head, and walked over, putting himself between Jack and any access to the front door. Tall Boy’s voice was mellifluous, and the accent was definitely educated.

“Can you answer them?” Jack asked, wincing to himself at how rubbish that sounded but not turning his head, because Short and Mean merited constant eye-contact.

When Bullet Head grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him around to face the tall man, Jack willed himself not to respond with an uppercut. “Hi. Captain Jack Harkness. My question stands.”

“But you’re going to sit, if you don’t mind. Jao, make him comfortable,” Tall Boy said.

“Jao would be this muscular gentleman with both his hands on me. Who’s the ... ah ... _compact_ one behind me – ”

_Damn._

The tall man smiled slightly. His voice was still gentle. “My friend, who I presume from your expression has placed his knife in the small of your back, is Salvha.

“I’m Nico.” He searched Jack’s face, but apparently didn’t find what he was looking for, and raised both eyebrows. “That’s interesting. I don't think you know who I am. And most people who ask the questions you have would definitely know me."

Jack desperately searched his memory of the quick once-over he’d done of the alarming library books. No, no major names beyond the Emperor's and the Governor’s. “I’m off-world, remember? I need –” This time his wince was visible. “Look, can you maybe ask Salvha here to pull the blade back a quarter inch?”

The Bullet Head, Jao, hissed; the first noise Jack had heard out of him. “Nico, he's Maldad. Let me and Salvha deal with him, eh?”

Jao and Salvha looked to Nico _(that can’t be his name. It sounds too much like a_ nom de guerre _)_ for direction. Jack decided he’d better move now.

“I _need,_ ” he said quickly, “to find out where some friends of mine might be. They came to Lizhbau with me, and they’ve disappeared. I’m afraid they’ve been taken by your Maldads, and–”

For a second, Jack couldn’t place the dry, sharp sound. By the time Hilda’s alarmed expletive was drowned out by thuds, metallic clashes, and patrons’ shouts, he’d identified it as the front door being smashed in by a battering ram.

A static roar overwhelmed the other voices with its own mechanical litany: _“This establishment is under embargo; do not attempt to leave. This establishment is under embargo; do not attempt to leave. This estab– ”_

“Nico!” That was Hilda, dodging around the bar and heading towards them. “Back door!”

The dry, cracking sound again, from another direction. Hilda stopped and looked over her shoulder, her dismay clear.

“Back door’s cut off,” Jack said directly to Nico, before calling to the bartender. “Hilda, back bar!”

Before Hilda could respond, an older woman sitting just off the main bar area broke and ran at the front door. Tactically it was a bad decision; the door was blocked by a confusion of uniformed figures, masked with black-visored helmets.

The air seemed to pop near the panicked woman. She collapsed, her eyes wide and surprised as blood flowered above her temple.

_“Attempts to break embargo will be sanctioned. Attention: attempts to break embargo will be sanctioned. Attention: attempts to– ”_

“Shit!” Jao dropped Jack, and Salvha made as if to dash towards the casualty. Jack whirled and slapped an arm across the little man’s chest. “Save it. She’s dead. Behind the bar, into the storage cellar.”

“What– ”

“Cellar entry behind the bar,” Jack repeated, pushing the little man in front of him and towards one end of the bar. He guessed that they had less than 45 seconds, at best, to evade the incoming forces, to disappear before things went completely pear-shaped _(Why now? Why this bar? Nothing’s ever a coincidence ....)_

“He’s right,” from Nico. “Go. Now!”

The four men scrambled behind the bar and Hilda, a quick study, followed them. “Get your damned heads down!” she hissed. “Over here.”

The cellar hatch was flush with the floor, and Hilda scrabbled ineffectually at the depressed handle for a desperate moment before she got purchase and tugged it open. 

_“ – outworld visas. Attention: present outworld visas. Attention –”_

Jack filed that away, and watched as Nico forced a still-bewildered Salvha down an extremely dodgy-looking stair, more ladder than anything. Jao, for all his bulk, was more nimble.

Fifteen seconds at most now. He jerked his head in Hilda’s direction. She nodded tightly, scraped past him and slid down the ladder, not even bothering to use the rungs.

Five seconds.

Just as Jack copied Hilda’s descent mode and used his own weight to pull the hatch shut above him, the inhuman recorded dictates stopped. He heard something new, a liquid and evil hiss followed by the sound of falling bodies. Not good; he didn’t like his timing to be quite so accurate, especially when he didn’t know what was happening to make it so.

He took as much stock of his new surroundings as he could in near complete darkness. There was undoubtedly a light, but Jack was willing to forgo it for the moment. The space smelled the way any bar store room did; years of spilled booze and the old wood it spilled onto. Jack smelled stone underneath that, from the floor, and felt the cool of it in an unseen wall close to his shoulder.

“Does the hatch lock?” he whispered, turning to where he thought Hilda was.

“Not from the inside,” she whispered back. “But we can pull the ladder down. That might slow them.”

“No.” That sounded like Nico. “No, they'd just jump down, and we'd have no way to defend ourselves. We need to run. Hilda, is there a way out?”

“Well, there’s the delivery lift. We could try that, push off the grate, but the lift’s been broken for months, so we’d have to haul ourselves out, and that's eight feet ....” She trailed off, and there was silence until Salvha, his baritone oddly querulous with fear, asked "Why're they here? The Maldads, why are they here?"

“Very possibly because they want me,” Jack said softly. “Or at least they’re looking for offworlders. _(I will not think about how they might be treating offworlders they already have.)_ and I fit the bill.”

“Hilda, where does the lift come up?” Jao asked.

“On the south side of the building.”

That was far from the front door, Jack thought, running over his reconnaissance trips to the head. And it was almost equally far from the back entrance, if he wasn’t mistaken. It was worth a try; the Maldads might not have figured on a third exit, and they’d also be busy going through the people upstairs.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he said. “Hilda, where’s the lift?”

“Over here.”

As quietly as possible, they followed Hilda’s voice. The lift area was small, but open to the sky, save for the sidewalk grille. It would have admitted a fair amount of light during the day. Tonight, it provided a lessening of the dark.

“Who checks?” Hilda was admirably calm, given the fright he could hear in her voice.

“I’ll do it.”

“You will not,” Nico rejected Jack’s offer. “Jao. Check.”

They made room for the big man and he reached up to grab at the grille's iron rungs then hoisted himself up to look through it as well as he could without actually pushing it aside. After a moment he dropped back to the floor.

“Can’t see anyone, but dislodging the grill could attract attention.”

“We’ll have to chance it.”

The next four minutes turned into a tense and silent cooperative effort as Jao and Jack somehow slid the grate out of place almost silently, and eased it down into the store room, then boosted Salvha, Nico and Hilda up onto the sidewalk. They pulled themselves out, all the while waiting for the shout that heralded discovery, capture and failure. It didn't come.

Once they had all regained their feet, Hilda looked at Nico. “The bolt hole.”

The tall man nodded. Even in the dark, Jack could see the weariness in his eyes. “You. Harkness. Come with us.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Be careful of what you hope, Ser Captain. Jao, watch our backs. Let’s go.”

Sometimes being in poorly lit slum areas came in handy. Shadowy streets made for excellent anti-Maldad camouflage, Jack thought. Now all he had to do was convince his unexpected companions to help him.

_Easy peasy, eh, Captain?_ He bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. The dark hid it, and he followed Nico further into the night.

_tbc_


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor stumbles, and Rose must pick up the pace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** The perspicacious **dr_whuh**. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** The Whoniverse and all its characters belong solely to the BBC and their respective creators. I claim no ownership and take no coin. I do thank the BBC for letting me play in their sandbox.

Getting out of a cell was nearly always easy, the Doctor knew. Staying out of it once you had was another thing altogether.

_Alright, then. You've maybe eight minutes before someone comes t'check the cell, and time's wastin',_ he thought. 

He stuffed the screwdriver back into a pocket, spared a quick look up the hall where the guards had gone, and immediately broke into a lope in the other direction. Most buildings – even prisons – had two or more ways out, and he’d risk spending the extra minute to find an alternate exit, if it meant he could avoid the much greater risk of taking Rose out into a courtyard full of guards.

The hall was long, its plasteel walls interrupted at regular intervals by the same kind of thick door he’d jiggered open to get out of their cell. This was no ordinary holding facility, he knew; doors that thick were meant to isolate and muffle. And it was relatively new; probably no more than 20 years old, if his guess was right. That would make the building interior, at least, a Bohlver works project. He tamped down hard on his anger, shuffling it off to where it wouldn’t interfere with the search.

At the end of the hall, he had to make a choice; a lift, or one of the two rather nondescript doors to its left and right. He didn’t trust lifts, and while he was intrigued by the “Authorized Holding Personnel Only” sign on one door, he wasn’t prepared to waste his time, or Rose’s safety, by exploring someplace where there might be holding personnel. So “Stairs” it was. Finding the door locked slowed him down only the seconds needed to use the screwdriver on the mechanism, but he noted that it was far more sophisticated than the already very secure cell doors. Curious.

The stairs he found behind the door went in only one direction, up. He grimaced. Odds were he’d find no easy exits upstairs. He was about to pull back into the main corridor, when something – perhaps a slight variance in surface texture – made him look at the wall to the left of the door. Something about it ....

He made a slight change in the screwdriver's setting, then shone the resulting light at the wall; to his unsurprised satisfaction, a thin tracery of lines became visible and resolved into an extraordinarily well disguised aperture.

A hidden exit? For a full 10 seconds he considered the less palatable possibilities waiting behind that door. _Are you walking into trouble if you open this? Better hope not, or you’ve made the wrong decision, and where does that leave Rose,_ he thought, sonicing the door open and checking the stairwell he found behind it. Looked like three or four flights straight down. Nothing for it, then, but to head down and look for an exit on one of the landings.

The first flight was nondescript, almost identical in color and materials to the upper hall. He found a door to the first lower level and popped through; another outer door to another hall, more cell doors, obviously just a continuation of the prison. He heard the sound of people talking and retreated quietly to the stairwell. A manned jail level was of no use to him.

There were no doors on the second or third landings, so he hurried to the final level. As he did, the Doctor felt a change in the dry, cold air that was the norm on Lizhbau. By the time he reached the bottom, it was positively dank, and smelled more like sewer, or swamp, than a municipal building.

 _Come on, y'lumberin’ prat, there's two minutes gone,_ he thought before turning his attention to the very small door that greeted him at the base of the stairwell. A door with perhaps the most sophisticated lock of all those he'd run into. His unease rocketed. The feeling only increased when he opened it and stepped into a small, dark area, less a hall than a foyer, poorly lit by a few dirty, old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.

The walls were no longer plasteel. They were rough-hewn rock, grey and pitted, but somehow shiny. He looked closer and realized they were slick with brackish moisture. _Now just where does that come from,_ he asked himself. _Not exactly sanitary, that’s for –_ He stopped, his eyes wide.

Something was tugging at him. He could feel it at the base of his brain, as real as the damp wall next to him, though not as noisome. He closed his eyes, turned inward to identify what was agitating his mind’s telepathic and empathic circuits. It didn’t take long.

_The drug. The bloody silk._

At least, he thought it was. He wasn’t falling prey to hallucinations, as he had when the stuff had been injected into him via suspension. But he felt it, shimmering just outside of his actual awareness; fluttering, shivering, pulsing.

He opened his eyes, shut them again, and shunted his awareness into some generally-unused neural pathways – no reason to exercise them regularly when he spent most of his time with non-telepaths – and activated stronger protections. The shimmering stopped.

How many minutes now? Just about five. He wasn't going to go farther, though, without checking this out. Very carefully, almost gingerly, he lowered his defenses just enough to "taste" the silk-generated disturbance. And it was only a matter of seconds before he wanted to spit it out. 

Somewhere past this foyer, past the door sitting opposite him on the other side of the dismal space, was a large supply of silk. And _(I will not allow this, I will put this cesspool to rights)_ there were human minds injured by it. He didn't doubt for a moment that they were some of the disappeared Sampaio had mentioned.

He grunted, a pained huff as his awareness reared back, away from a grotesque and nonlinear tangle of shredded thoughts, bewilderment, impressions twisted into a maelstrom no human mind could comprehend. No human mind should be part of that. No human mind could withstand it.

And what about his, then?

 _This is strong, way too strong_ ... He put a hand out to the wall, largely to steady himself, and the ooze of water brought him back to his surroundings. He shook his head slightly, then looked up and tried to reinforce his telepathic protections. Twenty-five more precious seconds before he had them knocked back into place, and two further seconds of unhappy realization that the defenses were dissolving as quickly as he shored them up.

Seven minutes gone, now. Back to the cell, then, he decided; before someone arrived and prevented him from taking Rose and running. _(Just not down here.)_ He started back up, taking the stairs two and sometimes three steps at a time.

But he couldn’t move away from what was sliding around the outer walls of his head; couldn’t get away from the inner tug. In fact, that tug was changing, seemingly trying to mold itself to his unique brain, trying to find a way inside, almost as if it was alive. And the more it did, the more he ... oh.

_(Click)_

Almost audible, that. He started breathing faster. _Don't be daft. You know what it is,_ he told himself. And he did, certainly he did, it was the tremors and echoes of whatever hell was hidden somewhere down at the bottom of the stairs.

Wasn’t it?

It hit again. He gasped and fell against the wall, just two steps from the door to his floor. The air around him _(inside me)_ was shimmering again. He put a hand to his face.

_(Doctor?)_

He heard her voice – no, he didn’t, he told himself. He heard nothing. But he felt the walls crumbling, dissolving like a sand castle before some inexorable wave.

Her voice threaded into his awareness. He felt her breath upon his neck, her hair brushing against his face.

_Stop it. Now. Please. Stop._

He couldn’t. Every time he felt the tug, her face flashed into his mind, the smell of her hair was sharp and insistent in his nose, echoes of her voice faded in and out of hearing, and all he knew of the world for that moment was her.

No.

It wasn’t silk, or not just silk, at any rate.

It was Rose.

Rose _(Rose, oh Rose– )_ was calling him, and he doubted that she knew it.

She was still prisoned by the drug - had to be, didn't she, funny, lovely _(no!)_ little human. she had to be flattened by the drug - but her deep unconscious must be restive. Must be fighting, and searching for him.

He knew, gut deep, what had happened. The drug had done more than lay her out. It had stimulated Rose’s previously inert telempathic neural pathways; and now she was calling to him.

The hidden door slid open as soundlessly as it had the first time, and he let it shut behind him before opening the door to the main hall. It was still empty of guards, and he allowed himself to relax very slightly, before preparing to dash back to Cell 42.

_(Click)_

Relaxation seemed, however, to involve watching a spot on the wall opposite the door slide higher and higher. This was not good.

_(Doctor!)_

He tried to brush away something from his eyes, then scrubbed at them, and still he could see nothing. His vision swam and pulsed in synchronous rhythm with the shimmer of the silk. And now he thought he saw her face blossom into reality in front of his own. He could smell her, the mix of perfume and sweat, human sweat, all hormones and mortality. Such eyes, he thought. Such beautiful brown eyes, such alien and lovely eyes, such a lovely gravity sink and she was all he wanted to sink into ....

************

“Doctor! Doctor? Doct ... oh, will you _please_ wake up, Doctor ... come on-”

Rose was working very hard not to panic, or at least not to let panic freeze her into immobility, as she softly chanted her plea. She knew they had to get out of here, and she was afraid she was the only one who could do it for the both of them.

His blue eyes were so incredibly wide that Rose still couldn’t quite believe they didn’t see her. She knelt and touched his beautiful, blank face, lightly. Not a twitch. She’d get no help from that quarter.

“Shit.”

She looked back down the hall, and shook her head, determined not to fall back into whatever crazy unconscious dreams she’d been dreaming — dreams of calling for him, she thought, screaming for him — before ... something ... pitched her back into the land of the living. Someone’s voice, she was certain. His voice. But here he was, as out of it now as she’d been only a few minutes before.

She had thought at first that the alarm had awakened her. She'd even opened one eye, expecting to see her own pink duvet. Instead, she’d found herself staring at a none-too-clean floor through the wire mesh of a very uncomfortable crate. It had only taken her a split second to realize she was alone, slightly longer to figure out which way was up, and bruise her shins and elbows quite thoroughly as she struggled to free herself. Once she tumbled out _(landed on your face again, and you'll be lucky if you don't have a shiner there, too)_ she scrambled to her feet, crept to the door of the cell, intent on following the tug—

Of what? Of _what,_ Rose Tyler?

She'd sworn softly at herself and followed the tug, something fastened in an unfamiliar-feeling part of her head, tying her to him. Because of course it was him, of _course_ it was. She'd headed right down to the end of the very long hall, looking behind her with every second step, certain someone would find her. And this place looked bad, like every rotten prison they'd ever landed in. Oh god, she wished Jack was here ... but he wasn't, and she had a job to do.

When she'd found him, she'd also found the screwdriver, lying a short distance from one open hand. She grabbed it now, and _(If I was the Doctor, wouldn't I have set this thing to open doors? Sure I would've)_ pointed it at the stairwell door, automatically ignoring the personnel door as a potential trap. She was relieved when it opened with satisfying rapidity.

Rose pocketed the screwdriver, scowled at the Doctor and blew out a breath, her cheeks puffing in anticipation of the strain to come.

She grabbed him under the arms and tried to push him into a standing position before seeing that it wasn't going work. And, she thought bleakly, there went her last hope that he could be jostled awake. Save it for later, she admonished herself, folding the Doctor's head and upper torso gently over one arm and wrestling him away from the wall. She considered getting behind him, then changed her mind on the fly.

"I'm shorter'n you, you bloody useless lump," she whispered in his ear, "but if I can get you over my back ... uhnh ... god, you're ... uhmn- oh, for the love of - there!"

'There' wasn't much more than his lanky self draped over her right shoulder, and threatening to slip off, until she fell to one knee and triangulated herself enough to duck under him completely, pull one of his arms around to her left shoulder, then haul him further up her back, as if he were some leather-clad backpack. _(Yeah, one with long and completely useless legs. Git.)_ Could she stand up with him now?

She heard voices, far enough away to be an echo for now, but she knew which direction her luck was turning, and blinked back tears. She really had to move.

"Ghnn." It was painful, but she ignored her protesting leg and back muscles and staggered to her feet, the Doctor draped over her.

Rose peered out from under her unconscious load and started to move toward the door just as she heard the voices again. Whoever they were, they were much closer. Her stomach lurched.

The Doctor chose just then to slide bonelessly from her shoulder to the floor, landing heavily on his back. That was bad enough by itself, but the unexpected motion also surprised a small scream from her—

—Just as two uniformed men turned a corner into the far end of the hall. They had been speaking with each other, but her outburst attracted their attention. Both began shouting as they started to jog toward her.

"You! Stop!"

"Prisoner! Prisoners loose!"

The sheer adrenaline jolt of fear made her head feel light, but she'd experienced that countless times since first rmeeting the Doctor.

_(Click)_

A split second later, she almost dropped back to her knees as the tug in the back of her mind threatened to pull her head from her neck.

_(Run)_

Her eyes snapped to the Doctor. His face was as still as before, but his blue eyes were no longer blank. They were focused on hers, intense and yearning. He obviously hadn't spoken, but she knew as certainly as she knew her own name that the word in her head had been his.

"Where?" She kept her voice low and it only wobbled a bit. "What about you?"

"I'll be fine." Now he _was_ speaking, albeit in a whisper. "I need you free. Stairwell, goes up, find an exit. _Go!_ " With the last word, his eyes seemed to lose her face again. She saw a flash of helpless anger slide back into that unnerving earlier absence.

Rose didn't try to rouse him, although he'd clearly wanted to say more. She knew she couldn't haul him with her, not with potential capture halfway down the blessedly long hall. She also knew that splitting up was sometimes their only option. Her next job would be to find Jack, and the two of them would come back for the Doctor. _(We'll be back, I promise, we won't leave you.)_

Rose practically fell through the door, deploying the screwdriver even as she caught her balance and slammed the door shut behind her. She wanted to jam the lock, give herself a few extra seconds, but she had no idea whether the screwdriver would answer that need. She willed herself to calmness, maneuvering it like a wand and hoping to accomplish something.

She did.

While shaking and waving the screwdriver left and right in frustration, a door that hadn't been there before opened in the wall to her left.

Rose didn't hesitate. She could duck in there, and the guards would think — she hoped — that she'd legged it up the regular stairs. After all, a secret door would be, well, _secret,_ wouldn't it? She shouldered the almost-invisible door further open, slid through the gap and fell against the other side, forcing it shut with her weight.

She looked about her. Another stairwell, this one going down. _That's good,_ she thought, _down usually means out. The Doctor should be pleased._ She hesitated when she thought she saw something shimmering out of the corner of her eye, but could spot nothing when she looked closer. She decided it had been a trick of the light, and descended.

*****************

"Shit. We lost her."

The grunt looked at Sargento Celestino nervously. They had both lost her, but he knew the Sarge would dump all the blame on him. He stepped aside as two other squaddies ran back from the stairwell door, trying to look as if they knew what they were doing. " Do you want the search widened?"

"What, with this crew? They can't find their arses with both hands and a road map," Celestino snapped. Then he sighed. "Oh, hell. Yeah. We'll play it strictly by the book. It may keep the both of us out of the brig long enough for someone to trip across her. Maybe. Let's get this one back to the cell. The Tenante'll want to figure out how in god's name he got as far as he did. Mother of god, I hate dealing with her jobs."

"Guess it's better than-"

"Shut it." Celestino didn't even like to think about the poor bastards assigned to Holding/Disposition.

It didn't take them long to drag the prisoner back to Cell 42.

******************

The safe house living room looked like every safe house Jack had ever used; spare, dingy and sad.

He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip, then looked over its brim across the card table.

"So, Nico. Just how do you intend to turn this world upside down?"

_(tbc)_


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Captain re-learns the dangers of being foolish, and the wisdom of being humble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was unruly, but I believe I calmed it down enough to let it lead me (and, readers, I hope you as well) down the correct path.
> 
> **Edited by:** My Best Beloved. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** As always, the BBC owns all rights to the Whoniverse. I am grateful for the privilege of being allowed to spin my stories - free of charge, but full of love - in it. 
> 
> _**Finally:** Quick and dirty translations of the blurred and mutated neo-Portuguese of the First Great and Bountiful Empire: _ Machado _means "axe," while_ bidasfeina _maps out very roughly to "caffeine drink." Unimaginative, but Truth In Advertising ....)_

It wasn’t really coffee, but as a caffeine substitute it was perfectly capable of helping Jack stay alert. Playing with the mug – staring over its rim at a disbelieving Nico as he was doing now, for example – also helped him marshal his thoughts and stall for time. _That overly dramatic intro didn’t help your cause. Learn to govern your mouth. Idiot._ But chastising himself could wait.

“I know that sounds unbelievably cheesy –”

Hilda snorted from her vantage point on a threadbare love seat next to the sitting room door. Jao Neves, sitting next to Nico, across from Jack, remained impassive. Knife boy ( _Salvha, Salvha, Salvha Adao, he’s got a name, don’t forget it_ ) was using the facilities; Jack didn’t mind having one less observer at this point.

“Yes, it does.” Nico wasn’t ceding any territory.

“You have to admit I tossed it off with aplomb,” Jack said. He grinned – when in doubt – then wiped the grin off his face and continued. “And you haven’t said I was wrong. I like to think I have a second sense about these things.

”But enough about me, let’s get back to you ( _keep talking, baffle them with bullshit now that you’ve opened your mouth_ ) and what you’re doing.

“First things first; I don’t know if our bar crashers were after me or you. It doesn’t matter, really. It could be both, since my team members have been missing long enough to assume capture and interrogation, and you folks have probably been on Bohlver’s top ten list for a while.”

He stopped, as he saw Nico’s lips thin. “Oh, now, you’re not going to deny it, are you? This city reeks of insurrection, and Nico Machado’s a call sign if ever I heard one. You’re part of whatever’s going on here, and by that I mean you’re part of the insurgency, the revolution, whatever it gets called around these parts.”

From the corner of his eye he could see Hilda watching him closely. In front of him, Jao’s eyes glittered in the bare-bulbed glare of the ceiling light.

“Aren’t you undercover types supposed to be more ... undercover?” Nico finally said. It was about as close to an answer as Jack had expected.

“Not when my team’s in danger,” he answered. Honesty was, occasionally, the best policy, and his anxiety didn’t have to be faked.

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned your team.”

“Third time, actually.” Jack grinned again, leaning forward and putting his mug on the table. “I mentioned them about two seconds before the Maldads broke down the front door of the bar. Are they usually that insistent, by the way, or is it just when they want to catch members of the underground?”

Nico ignored the question. “Are you Imperium?”

_What do you say, Captain?_ Jack asked himself. _In for a penny, boy, in for a pound._

“Yes. Not that any Imperium official on this planet would know. Or admit.”

Jao caught Nico’s eye for the barest of moments and both men looked, if it was humanly possible, even more flinty. Jack fought his own face, and a flare of alarm. What had he said?

“You’re not Black Throne,” Jao said, his voice sounding rusty as it capitalized the words.

“No,” Jack replied promptly, easily, wondering what the hell Black Throne was besides something he had better deny, “Black Throne doesn’t know we exist.”

The title of one of those frightening Lizhbauan history books flashed into his mind, and now ( _jump!_ ) he he thought he knew what to say next.

“We’re David’s.”

Salvha, re-entering the room just as he said it, gaped at him. So did Hilda. Jao looked at Nico again. The silence stretched on longer than Jack wanted it to. Outside, he heard the sound of distant traffic; echoing footsteps on the dirty stones of the narrow street below; the indefinable melange of sounds a city makes in the darkness before dawn. He was grateful when Nico finally spoke.

“Sit down, Salvha,” the man said, softly. The little man did so, on the floor beside Hilda. Nico resumed. “Go on, Ser Capitão.”

“Silk is being moved here,” Jack said. He didn’t pose it as a question. “Silk and slaves. Both are being moved under protection of law, despite being illegal on Lizhbau and everywhere else in the Empire. It’s being done by Dehde Bohlver. We don’t know how, or for how long, but he’s subject to the full force of Imperial justice. There’s no appeal.

“Normally this wouldn’t be a problem,” Jack said. “We’d bring in Imperial justice forces, remove the governor, and that would be the end of it. David’s taken down better men than Bohlver, for lesser crimes. Sometimes he’s taken down good men for no crime at all; he can do it. He is the Empire, after all.”

Nico stopped him, his voice suddenly harsh: “Then what it is about this case that differs? Why can David, Lord of Armies, Judge of Civilization, Image of the Imperium, O Graça, O Majestade of the Great and Bountiful Empire of Humankind Among the Stars, not take down one corrupt and ... foolish planetary governor?”

What was that in his voice, Jack wondered, under the bitterness?

Across the room, Hilda watched Nico anxiously. “Nico ...”

“No, Hilda,” he said, turning to her briefly with a crooked smile. “Let the Captain answer me.”

_It’s anguish ... for – who?_

“Because he’s ringed about with enemies,” Jack answered, mirroring Nico’s sardonically ceremonial language with his own as he built his case from whole cloth. “The Imperium isn’t at peace, and the Court’s dangerous, even for its Emperor. There are parties, now uncomfortably close to the throne, who thrive on the silk road.”

“And the Emperor has such trouble keeping order that this is a problem? Has he no allies, no strategies? He wields Imperial censure, banishment, death; why would his enemies be of any concern? What does one greedy little man on Lizhbau represent, that the Emperor doesn’t exercise his proper power?”

There was that undercurrent again. Jack couldn’t interpret it, not in the middle of trying to route the conversation the way he wanted it. Which, he admitted, was becoming increasingly difficult.

“Yeah, well, empires are like that. Big. Scary. Fragile.”

“And so you, you and your team, are what? His one hope?” Now Nico’s bitterness was closer to the surface. And rage; Jack knew the sound of rage.

His answering smile was careful ( _Captain, is that your internal alarm going off?_ ), but before he could respond, Nico went on.

“If he can’t use the military, why not Black Throne?”

“Nico?” Jao looked from his commander to Jack, then back. The thickset man looked, like Nico, increasingly hostile.

“No, I’m interested. Why not his very, very effective more-than-secret service?”

Jack’s throat went tight; always the first sign of panic and always that special kind of panic he only felt when he’d royally screwed up. _You chose badly, boy, but you don’t know how, and you can’t back down now._

He leaned back, throwing both arms up and resting his head on his hands. “Why do you think? Because the powers I’m talking about own people in both.”

“Not in Black Throne.”

Jao’s confidence was unnerving; time ( _since you’re already hip-deep_ ) for another jump. “When did you muster out?”

Jao blinked. “What? Out of the force?”

“I don’t doubt you were a ground pounder once upon a time, but no. Out of Black Throne.”

Jao didn’t answer Jack. Instead, he turned to Nico. “I’ve heard enough.”

Nico rubbed his eyes, then nodded. “So have I.”

Jao moved, and the gun appeared.

_Oh shit._

“No, Nico!” That was Hilda, springing from the loveseat.

“What?” from Salvha, his eyes wide as he scrambled to his feet.

Jao’s arm was extremely steady. The simple and undoubtedly very effective gun – complete with silencer, Jack noted abstractedly – pointed directly at Jack’s right eye, without the slightest tremor.

“Jao?” Salvha again, apparently not quite as quick on the uptake as he was with a blade.

“Not here,” Hilda said, crossing the room and putting her hand on Nico’s arm. “Somewhere we can dump him easily.”

_So much for cultivating the pretty face,_ Jack sighed to himself, keeping his hands on his head. He didn’t want to make any sudden moves. When faced with a gun, move slowly, choose your actions and your words carefully ( _what, you couldn’t have tried that, oh, five minutes earlier?_ ) and calculate the odds of a dive for the exits. Right now? They were extremely bad.

_Come on, think!_ he castigated himself. _You’re a trained operative with years of experience! You’ve been in worse situations, and gotten out of them! Hell, just weeks ago you escaped a bomb –_

No.

He hadn’t escaped. He’d been rescued.

Rose and the Doctor had saved his life and taken him in. To his chagrin, he’d become a lot more than grateful. They’d gotten to him, the both of them; the slip of a girl with the blazing smile and the strange man with the ice blue eyes. They'd brought him in to an impossible ship, and they hadn't — they _hadn't!_ — abandoned him. The strangest man, the strangest woman, the most unexpected saviors.

And here he was, Captain Jack Harkness – former Time Agent, cold-eyed strategist, born adventurer – and he couldn’t return the favor.

He’d been hoist on his own petard because he’d been too clever by half. He'd gotten caught up in the game and forgotten his real goal — paradoxically, because it was easier to think about the game than it was to think about them.

It was the kind of mistake that killed amateurs, and why? Because ... because he couldn’t get them out of his head. He hadn't compartmentalized thoughts of them, the way he'd been taught to do in this kind of situation. Everything he thought, everything he planned, each of his reactions, was skewed — thrown off course, drawn out of proper orbit into theirs.

He couldn't operate with them there; it could kill him.

Worse, it could kill them.

_And that is not going to happen_ he thought, _at least not because you were a fucking moron. Suck it up, Harkness, and fix this mess._

Jack shook his head and laughed softly, an unexpected sound in the quiet room.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”

Hilda blinked. Nico, who had been looking at some unseen thing over Jack’s head since giving Jao the nod, refocused on Jack.

Jack smiled at him, shrugged, then laughed a little more. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have led with the whole ‘turn the world upside down’ thing,” he said. “The guys at super secret spy school will never let me live it down. If I, you know, actually get to live.”

Jao’s brow furrowed, but the gun didn’t waver.

“Now that we’ve established my complete incompetence as an undercover agent, can I suggest to you that I’d be equally incompetent at giving you up, or turning you in? If we can get past the unpleasantness, I can get back to my original goal of asking for your help.”

Salvha was eying him ever more warily. Jao didn’t put down the gun, but his gaze shot to Nico, obviously for guidance, before returning to Jack. Hilda had begun to shake her head in amused disbelief. Perhaps she didn't think he was completely expendable Jack thought.

“Look, it has to be obvious to you guys that I can’t even tie my shoes by myself, let alone extract victims from the hands of villains. And I have a couple of friends who need rescuing, if only because I miss the sound of them telling me I’m a waste of space.”

The gun still hadn’t gone off and Jack thought he spied a nascent and ruthlessly suppressed smile on its bearer’s rocklike face.

“So, Nico: you want to hear the real story? Just because I’m an idiot doesn’t mean my team – Rose Tyler and the Doctor, by the way, you should know who I’m currently failing to rescue – have to die in Bohlver’s hands. You’d like them, I think. If I can convince you to help them stay alive.

“And I think you people can do it,” he said, waiting a beat before adding, “because _you’re_ David’s people here, aren’t you?”

Hilda put both hands to her mouth and Salvha glanced at her, nervously. Jao could have been part of his own gun for all the reaction he displayed.

Nico said nothing for a moment. Instead the tall man walked to the sitting room’s one small window, and moved the curtain aside very slightly, so that he could watch the street.

Nobody moved to interrupt him.

After a moment, he spoke.

You are either far more stupid than I thought you were, or theatrically profligate with your observational talents. Or perhaps just completely mad.”

“Yep.” Jack left it at that.

Nico left the window, returning to his confederates. “Well?”

“It would be a lot less messy to listen to him, Nico,” Hilda said.

Jack was startled to see Salvha nodding vigorously in agreement, more surprised to hear him speak. “We can always deal with him later.”

Nico made what looked like a gesture of surrender.

“Alright, Jao, put the gun down.”

“Huh.” For a moment, Jack was afraid Jao wouldn’t obey, but the muzzle finally lowered, and Jack judged that he could finally think beyond the next five seconds.

“Can I put my hands down?”

“Of course.” Nico’s shrug was elegant.

Jack relaxed, blew out a grateful breath. “Thanks.”

Nico’s face was unreadable. “Now. Let’s hear the truth, Captain – are you a captain? Of any kind?”

“No, not really, but I’ve called myself one for so long that I answer to the title. Look, this all might go a lot better, and quicker, with a refill of – what is this stuff, exactly?”

“Bidasfeina,” Hilda said, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s not Fort’leza’s best, but it keeps you awake. I’ll make some more. I don’t want Nico’s sludge.” She headed back to the rear of the flat, presumably to provide something better than sludge.

“Staying awake,” Nico said, looking after Hilda a moment before re-seating himself and indicating that everyone else should do the same, “is what’s going to be important tonight, I suspect.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose follows her nose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Not for sex, or for violence, but for any possible triggers caused by evidence of extreme imprisonment.  
>   
>  **Disclaimer:** As always, none of the characters in this story are mine. They belong to the BBC, to RTD and friends, and to the Whoniverse. I am grateful to be allowed to play with them. Many thanks to my Best Beloved for his second set of eyes.

"Oh my god ... it stinks down here," Rose muttered, blinking rapidly as she forced herself to breathe. The claustrophobic space at the base of the stairwell was dank and all too reminiscent of overworked pub loos.

But the smell didn't bother her as much as whatever it was impeding her sight — well, not really impeding, she thought. Just ... _shifting_ it somehow, as if she had a very little light hiding behind her, blinking on and off at unpredictable intervals, and throwing shadows that were just as hard to predict.

The shimmer she'd spotted out of the corner of her eye when she started down the stairs had been the start of it, and it had increased as she descended further. Maybe something in the air, something connected with the smell? It didn't seem to be affecting her any other way, though. _I'm not unconscious, not paralyzed, that's gotta be good. Not hallucinating, not throwing up or falling down; that's gotta be good,_ she thought, determined not to let the flutter and wow in the air around her throw her off course. She couldn't afford to think about it, not just now.

So. Forget the shimmer as long as she could see in front of her, try to ignore the smell, and make a decision about whether to open that door.

That door, now ... _that_ was creepy, that and the wet stone walls. It all seemed to her like the entry to some dungeon in a Hammer Horror picture, and Laowhra's talk about silk made her chew her lower lip. What would she find behind that door?

Nothing good, she was certain.

But she couldn't go back up. She didn't dare return to the regular stairwell, not with the bad guys out there looking for her. She had to get out of wherever this place was, into the streets, and she had to find her way back to the TARDIS. Jack would be there _(pleasepleaseplease)_ and they'd work out a plan to spring the Doctor. And that meant she had to go through the damned door. Was it locked?

Rose looked closer, and realized the dull black metal panel wasn't pulled completely to. She ignored both the shimmer and her increasing heart rate, and pushed experimentally at it. It opened.

"Bugger."

The little foyer it revealed was even creepier than the door. This was definitely not the kind of basement you wanted to be in. And of course there was another door, even smaller than the one she'd just walked through. She rubbed at her eyes and cursed softly at the now near-constant flicker. This latest one looked even more like a dungeon entryway, she thought.

"Then Christopher Lee's gotta be about, yeah?"

Saying that out loud made her nerves seem silly, at least momentarily, and surprised a giggle from her. For a second the shimmering lessened, which allowed her to get back to business.

So. Was this crude little opening locked? She took the handle, twisted and pulled at it without success. Trying to force it open was equally fruitless, so she reluctantly took out the screwdriver. Rose didn't like working with it any more than she had to, beset, as she usually was when it came to the Doctor's favorite hand tool, with visions of somehow turning it accidentally to a "blow up the world" setting. Still, needs must. At least she knew where its 'on' switch was, and remembered a couple of the most basic settings.

The screwdriver's whine was oddly comforting as she shook it in the general direction of the tiny keyhole under the handle. No, that wouldn't do, she realized; just because the upper doorway opened by happy accident when she'd done the same thing didn't mean this one would. She bent closer and pointed the blue-lit head of the screwdriver directly at the keyhole. Nothing happened, so she adjusted the settings, holding her breath as she did.

When she heard the tiniest of clicks from the keyhole, she blew the breath out and turned the handle. It opened, smooth as butter. _No more excuses, you have to go through and keep going, she thought. If there are guards on the other side — oh shut it, you big girl's blouse._

Rose eased herself through and closed the door behind her, only to gag at the intensified smell. And now she was able to identify it more accurately, thanks to too many unplanned stays in poorly-maintained jails; unwashed bodies, sweat, urine and more unpleasant secretions. She had apparently walked into someplace worse by several degrees than the interrogation cell in which she'd awakened.

She couldn't pinpoint the source, not immediately. Or rather the smell was immediate, but she could see no people, guards or otherwise, nearby. In fact the area looked like nothing so much as the mechanicals and storage sections in Henrick's basement. It was much better lit than the tiny foyer behind her, and, for all the stench, appeared reasonably clean. Rose turned around and saw that this side of the door was almost unnoticeable, with a very tiny message to _"Keep Locked at all Times"_ stenciled above the door handle. She thought dourly that it wasn't likely anyone in power around here actually expected people to come in, or go out, of their own volition.

She put her hand to the wall and pulled it back in surprise; it was just as damp as the stone wall in the bottom stairwell, something she might not have noticed had she not touched it. She sniffed the air again, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and realized that the stink floated on monumentally humid air, which was undoubtedly why the walls were weeping. It was far wetter than the harsh dry air of Lizhbau, certainly more so than the air in the cell upstairs ... didn't this planet have air conditioning?

No, that wasn't it, she realized. The humidity wasn't the result of any ventilation system breakdown; she'd have felt the mugginess upstairs if that was the case. It had to be deliberate. But why keep it this way?

_Bloody hell._

The shimmering had returned, although not quite as badly as it was just before she came through the second door, and now -

_(Wind blew, voices carried, called-)_

"What?" Rose whispered the question aloud, stunned at yet another sensory intrusion.

_(Wind carrying voices, many voices, manymany-)_

She shook her head _(wind and voices, listen, almost understandable in the windrushingrushing)_ refusing to listen, then scrubbed at her face, hard. This was not going to happen, she thought fiercely, she would not let it. Bad enough that she couldn't shake the visual confusion, she couldn't get dragged into some new hallucination. And, oh yes, the whispers were definitely a hallucination of some new kind.

"And that means silk, I suppose," she said softly to herself. "At least I think so. But I don't know what that means, do I? Is this where they store it? Or turn it into that rubbish they dosed us with? It smells like a muck skip, like a broken toilet - no way you can miss that smell, yeah? So where's the people making the stink?"

She stopped, put her hands to her mouth in embarrassment. _Want someone to hear you? And you make fun of Jack for being a motor mouth._

Just as she thought that, she saw the corner of her vision start to shift again, and -

_(windandrushandcallsinthewindrushinghelpus)_

"No, don't you dare," she hissed. To her bemused relief, her vision steadied as she spoke and the almost-sounds sank into inaudibility.

She frowned, and spoke again, almost in a whisper. "So ... what, I just keep babbling to myself?"

_Well, you don't want anyone answering you inside your head, do you?_

"Right, then, I keep babbling." 

Rose looked down the long room in which she found herself. Beyond, past an a open wire gate, she could see one corridor straight ahead, and what looked like the start of a second narrow but reasonably well lit hall at right angles to the first. "Another choice to make, then. To the right, or straight ahead? Which way to the exit, please? And can you please not put me in a cell or knock me out, please? Eeny-meeny-miny-mo ... let's go straight ... straight, huh? Wonder what Jack would make of that? Call it pretty dull dancin', I'm sure, although I don't know whether he thinks any dancing's dull. God knows he wants to dance with one of us, but that's not gonna happen, more's the pity, and oh, my god, I'm glad he can't hear what I'm saying."

She ignored the blush that the running commentary brought to her face, walked to the gate and peered to her right before heading straight up what seemed to be a longer corridor than the one she'd eschewed. The walls here were just as as shiny with moisture as they were behind her. Half way down the corridor, she also noticed the smell had intensified still more. She fought her suddenly rebellious stomach, a battle not made any easier by the continual visual disturbance.

"What I'm looking for now," she went on almost sub-vocally, desperate to ignore the nausea, "is a door that's clearly marked 'Exit safely here to the outside, where there aren't any guards, an' you can head safe home,' but failing that, I'll look for one that simply says Exit. What I'm not lookin' for are - shit!"

A gabble of male voices _(God they're loud, are they deaf or something?)_ signaled unwanted company, apparently coming down the corridor behind her. Rose whirled about, looking for someplace to hide - what the hell was it about corridors, half her bloody life since meeting the Doctor was running up and down the damned things - because she couldn't get back to the room she'd left without running into whoever was coming. Could she reach the end of this hall and get around the corner she saw there, without making enough noise to alert them to her presence?

She sprinted, heart in her mouth. Despite being certain they'd hear her, she couldn't hear any change in the gabble. It transformed into conversation as the unseen group got closer. Rose put on one last burst of speed and careened around the corner. She found herself in another bright foyer with _(thankyougod)_ a tiny blue and white "Exit" sign above another metal slab door.

" ... got away. So we get stuck with perimeter watch because those idiots can't do their job."

"Do they actually expect some skirt to get down here on her own? Do they think anything moves here unless we move it?"

"See, you're supposing they think."

The laughter was raucous, loud — yelling in a crowded club loud, Rose thought — and it was still coming her way. She headed to the exit door and was about to open it when she spied the small print under the sign. Her heart sank. _"Authorized Retinal Scan Required, or Alarm Will Sound."_

She felt like crying. Now what? Surrender? Give up?

_The hell with that._

She looked around again. There, at the far end of the foyer; a tiny alcove with two doors facing each other. Not caring whether anyone heard her now, she dashed to the alcove and tried both doors. The first seemed to be dead-bolted on the other side; the second was easier to unlock with the screwdriver. It had the added benefit of a small and grubby window. She peered in, saw nothing moving in the dim interior, then opened the door and ducked inside, figuring she could brave a look back out through the window to check for the guards.

_(windrushesvoicescallinghelphelpwherewhenhelpohgodwindcarries)_

Rose staggered, and fell against the door as she shut it, sliding down with her face against the metal, unable to control her limbs. The resulting pain was a blessing, keeping her mind from slipping completely into the gust and torrent of silent voices that threatened to overwhelm it. Although she didn't immediately know it, her temporary paralysis was also a blessing. Had she remained upright, even the desultory look the guard shot through the window seconds later would have revealed her. As it was, he saw nothing. The door had relocked behind Rose, and he had absolutely no desire to enter the room beyond it. Nor, more importantly, could he imagine anyone else wanting to.

"Nothing. Let's get back to the wardroom and out of this godforsaken reek. You'd think they could hose out the pens ...." The guard's voice receded slowly.

Rose was at least temporarily safe, but she was still under siege from her own senses. The visual and aural onslaught finally overwhelmed her; she turned her head and leaned to one side in time to avoid emptying her stomach all over herself. She retched repeatedly, spasming into dry heaves that finally trailed off. She wiped her mouth and tried to think.

_(windandvoicesskirlinghissingsinandoutofherepleasegodontgo-)_

"Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up," she mumbled, half swallowing the words as she rolled away from the door and the vomit, to lie prone on a wet but blessedly cool floor. The torrent of not-sound retreated in the face of her litany, and she grinned faintly, crazily, into damp stone before continuing the muffled tirade. She felt as if she were talking to someone, now, not to herself. "I am not going to listen, I don't know what you are, but I'm ignoring you. The only thing I'm thinking about is getting out of here and whatever the hell you are, you are stayin' out of my head, you got that?"

Talking steadied her. She gathered what she could of her wits and forced herself to her feet, then looked around her. "So what do we have here? Isn't that what the Doctor would ask, yeah, he most certainly would ...."

Enough light shone through the tiny windowpane to make her surroundings visible once her eyes adjusted. The first thing she spied was a rough trench, cut into the stone floor and running more or less down the center of the room. Rose saw bits and pieces of rubble on the floor to each side of it, as if the thing had only recently been dug. In the uncertain light, she could see a sullen trickle of water - her gorge rose again as she caught a whiff of it, but she forced it down again. She was standing about a foot from the trench, which seemed to run into a wall next to the door. Across its six or seven-inch span the floor ran uninterrupted up to - she narrowed her eyes, trying to interpret a befuddling jumble of deeper darkness beyond her immediate ability to see.

_(windagainrushingandlouderlouderlouderhelphelp)_

"Oh god, I can't keep this up," she muttered, "only so much I can say before I'm just talking nonsense and no reason or rhyme. Wait... yeah, that'd work. Lessee ... Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row ... pussycat, pussycat, where have you been? I went to London to visit the Queen, pussycat, pussycat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under the chair ...."

There, that was easier than trying to keep up a one-sided conversation. Rose reached for the nursery rhymes she'd heard as a child, and starting humming the old tunes. _Feels like a little bit of home, doesn't it?_ she thought; she felt that crazy smile again. She felt better too, more anchored somehow, than she had since she started descending the stair, which might not be a great improvement, but she'd take it.

"Help me. Please. Please help me."

She very nearly dismissed it as another mental incursion. But the whisper was outside her head, not inside. And - a jolt of adrenaline cleared her mind with the kind of brutal speed nursery rhymes couldn't - it was the whisper of a child.

A child at the end of its tether, whispering because its throat was raw from screaming in terror and pain so great it might start screaming again.

Rose looked deeper into that jumble of shadows across the trench. The jumble resolved into a row of crates of varying heights, but nothing much over four feet. She looked back at the door, half expecting it to open on her when she turned the screwdriver on. Nothing happened, so she found one of those basic settings she remembered. The tip glowed a brighter blue than normal - not really much more light than she might have coaxed from a dying torch, but it added enough to the available ambient light that the crates were now quite easy to see, more than a dozen of them. They were fronted with wire mesh doors, and looked like the ones some people kept their dogs in, except that their sides seemed ... painted somehow, or - no, they were draped in something ... and inside the crates-

"Please help me. If you're real ... are you real?"

The sheer hopelessness of that cracked little whisper almost broke Rose's heart. All her own fear and nausea fell away, and she crossed the sewage trench without delay. "I'm real. Where are you?"

The stench was different, this close to the crates. The sharp tang of bodily fluids, yeah, she recognized that. And blood, she could smell blood. But there was something sweet, something too sweet and underneath that -

This time she couldn't control her gorge. She doubled over, dry-heaving helplessly.

When she could command herself again, she raised her head and used the frail light of the screwdriver to take a more careful look up and down the row of boxes. Every single one was draped in blue cloth. Each held a body. She couldn't tell if any one of those bodies was moving, and she was very afraid that at least one or two of them hadn't moved for some time. Would never move again.

_I am going to go mad, that's all there is to it._ "Hush little baby, don't say a word, brother's going to buy you a singing bird, and if that selfish bird won't sing, sister's going to buy you a golden ring ...."

"Please -"

There. There, to her left. Motion to go with the whispered plea.

"I'm here," she got out, and moved the last few steps to the crate. Falling to her knees, she looked inside.

A pale, dirty face stared at her, eyes wide and mad with both fear and hope.

"Please, lady, can you take me home?"

********

Lte. Isobel Fahrar had a pounding headache. She looked at the man standing in front of her, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "You have no idea how tempted I am to say that I'm surrounded by incompetents, but I know that's not true. Not completely."

"I'm calling in some of the day shift, Tenante," Sgt. Celestino said. "They're fresh, and a good sight more on the ball than my lads. Begging your pardon, but my boys are idiots."

For a wonder, she saw, his tunic was buttoned right, and he didn't smell of whiskey. Small blessings, and he did know his men's limitations.

"I don't care whose men you use, Sargento. I simply want her found by 11 bells. And in the meantime-"

Fahrar turned her attention to the second person standing in front of her, the young tech assigned to night shift for Special Operations. She'd been busy over the last 20 minutes with the man they'd recaptured. "What have you got for me?"

The woman's confusion was at odds with the hard lines about her eyes. "Tenante, I'm not sure. Have you ever heard of a Thyme Lord?"

_(tbc)_


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn why the Captain was hunted so quickly, and a little about the hunter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to my **Best Beloved** , who is my finest editor. As always, as much as I wish it were otherwise, The Doctor, Rose, Jack and the TARDIS are part of the BBC's Whoniverse. I mean no copyright infringement, and take no coin.

"If getting psych prints left anything worthwhile sir, I'd use them all the time. But it doesn't work that way—

"No, not at all. If I have to, I will, certainly. But the man's ... unusual, at least enough to keep around for now. He's definitely off-world, for one thing, he's thinking in some archaic version of Anglish — yes, some worlds still use it — and he could be ... no, sir. I understand. Lots of tourists, lots of accidents. Just let me have some more time with— hold on, sir.

" _No._ This report is for Sous-Tenante Obrigad, not me. Obrigad? Supply side? Deliveries and supplies ... never mind, I'll deal with it. Leave it with me. That's all, and get out.

"Sorry, sir. Everything's been in flux since Avhenna went down. No, we'll manage. I'm seeing to it.

"I'll get back to you with the information. If they know anything about Nic— about the insurgents, or Machado, I'll get it. Fine ... yes, thanks. Thank you sir."

Isobel Fahrar put down her phone set and, yet one more time, rubbed her temples. It had been a miserable day, from start to finish, the latest and worse in a long line of them.

She'd been pulled out of General Command 10 days ago to handle the complete cluster fuck that was Fort'leza Central Detention, formerly Imperial Legion Regional Headquarters, Lizhbau-Fort'leza, in the wake of its warden's recent assassination. She'd expected it to be bad, but this? This was worse than everything she'd heard, even in the drunken scuttlebutt in the junior officers' club.

The paper blizzard, fine; the mishandled cases, handleable. The screwed up schedules, the missed deadlines and quotas, the growing unrest outside the gates, the questions, the steady stream of relatives looking for the disappeared? Not quite so easily handled, not without some heads rolling, but she could do that.

But the filth! The broken and neglected equipment, the slap-dash nature of everything, the way they kept their own weapons! The malnourished prisoners, the sick ones, the ones that had been worked over for no strategic reason, no good reason at all ... _Sera Lumena,_ the dammed plumbing in this rat-hole! Day after frustrating day!

She had no illusions. It was a two-edged honor, a sign from the wolves above her that she was being tested, perhaps to destruction, that elegant phrase her engineer father used to use. They thought she was good, so they threw her into this swamp. If she drowned, there'd be another bright-eyed junior administrator to take her place.

She accepted it; it was the fire that tempered or consumed generations of hungry young officers. If she won through, though, if she cleaned up this cesspool and got it running the way it should ....

Dealing with FCD as it was now, and as it would probably be for the foreseeable future, was fraught with possible Imperial retribution. If she was in charge of it, though, eventually it would be much more ... low profile. Maybe even— But she wasn't in charge yet, she was just an unwanted intruder from GC. All the slovenly, careless, stupid — her temples throbbed — staff here, from the regular substandard washed-up or drummed-out ex-soldiers making their rum money as jailers to the sick bastard "Special Operations" crews downstairs, were impediments; all their own laughable excuses for officers testing her at every turn, damn their eyes.

She would beat them. She could make this place run like a dream, even the below stairs work. If she played this right, if she got through this secondment, she might find some more stripes waiting on the desk for her back at General Command. And those new stripes ... as a senior officer, she could come back here as the official replacement for Avhenna, not just the cleaner. She could turn it back into a military operation, not just a—

"Shut up," she said softly to herself. Very softly; she had no idea what listening devices some of Avhenna's surviving hyenas might have left. And then she laughed at herself. Wolves, hyenas, swamps and fires; she was mixing her metaphors badly. She most definitely needed sleep. But not yet. She had to get to the bottom of this thing that those two idiot informants had lobbed at her, all unknowing.

Almost she wished that she'd ignored the frantic calls from their handler, but she'd learned never to ignore her inner alarms. She'd pulled together the least inept people on shift at the time and had headed out to the Sampaio residence herself, not trusting anyone else. And her alarms had been right. These were off-worlders, poking around and looking for the insurgency. The girl had somehow proven resourceful enough to get out of her cell and go missing in the labyrinthine corridors of FCD. The man had almost done the same. That was intriguing enough, but the man's physical condition made her alarms go off even louder. They could well have been clean Imperials, far more dangerous to her bosses than the tame and dirty ones on Inverno's take.

God, Inverno.

Hard on the heels of discovering that she might actually have something more on her hands than an off-world tourist, or even a careless Court spy, she'd had to take a call from Inverno, less than three hours after they'd retaken the prisoner. Someone had tipped Inverno off to both the capture and the "escape," and he had been displeased. She'd had to use every mental trick in the book to sound unconcerned, yet respectful, but it had worked, and he had rung off sounding rather more at ease.

Whoever had thought she might be chagrined at the untimely information leak needed to be found, and dealt with.

Fahrar shuffled through some reports she'd just reviewed, stamped the completed ones, and pulled out the ones to be turned back to their unfortunate crafters. Then she stopped and thought about the phone call again, before fishing into her desk for the headache pills. 

Damn the man. She'd only had to take his calls for the past 10 days, but already she hated talking to the Governor's major-domo. Not that he wasn't intelligent — he was, and perhaps that was what bothered her the most. Why people with that kind of brilliance were willing to put it to the service of avaricious fools like Bohlver, instead of taking power for themselves, was beyond her. Yes, she understood the idea of _eminences grise_ but surely the really successful ones had better material to work with?

"Tchaugh." She hated the taste of the pills; they dissolved too fast for the water to wash out of her mouth completely. She picked up the phone again. "I'm coming down. I want to see that work-up. Yes, again."

She headed down to the euphemistically named interview room, after looking at the clock. She had at least another hour before Celestino came back, probably with another excuse about why he couldn't find the girl.

 

*******************

When Jack slept, he curled up on his side like a child, with his hands near his face as if to protect it. The Doctor knew that because he'd come across the exhausted Captain barely a day after he had come on board, dead asleep on the floor in some out of the way TARDIS room. That's when he'd known the man hadn't had enough sense to believe that he'd been invited to stay.

The TARDIS had provided him a perfectly comfortable room, and the conman — the Doctor was at that point reserving judgment on whether the description could be jettisoned — had been effusively grateful for it, but the Doctor recognized the unease he saw flickering across the other man's face. He'd been a conman so long he didn't trust others not to con him, the Doctor knew.

When Jack had asked if it was all right for him to poke about a bit, his most attractively insincere smile lighting up the room, he'd cocked his own eyebrow, shrugged, and told him to do what he liked. He didn't mind; his veins were still filled with the fiery delight of that night, and of the dance. More time alone with Rose suited him fine and Rose, after a keen look at him, obviously decided to let sleeping dogs lie. He was certain she wondered why he'd let a stranger wander the halls of the TARDIS, especially one of whom he'd been loudly wary. He wasn't about to tell her that should he, or She, decide Jack was a liability, the TARDIS could keep him going harmlessly in circles until he decided what to do with the man.

A few hours later, with Rose asleep or futzing about in her own rooms, he finally decided to check on the newcomer. As he'd suspected, the bedroom was still empty, which meant Captain Jack Harkness was further inside his marvelous ship.

It had taken him a bit longer than he'd expected to find the ex-Time Agent, but She finally decided to give him a nudge in the right direction. And there the man had been, curled about himself with his eyes moving rapidly under their closed lids. His bravado had apparently hidden bone-deep weariness. (How long had he been running, what had he been running from, how desperate was that con?) It had obviously ambushed him before he could retrace his steps to his new bedroom.

Even as the Doctor had suppressed his irritation at this, he was struck by the still figure. Jack seemed like a tired street child, snatching cold and comfortless sleep in some cobblestone alley. The image had surprised a briefly protective surge in him, which unexpected emotion he had rejected almost as soon as it occurred; still, he'd been gentle when he awakened Jack and walked him back to his bedroom. He'd never been sure who was more embarrassed about it all.

Over the next few days and weeks, he had found himself searching for that vulnerability in Jack awake, and told himself he was just keeping track of a potential problem when he watched the man. He didn't trust handsome men. He certainly didn't trust handsome human men who flirted with ... he didn't trust handsome men, nor brave men, nor bright ones whose eyes followed him around as if searching for a lifeline. He certainly didn't trust the man who slept like a beautiful child on the floor of the TARDIS—

 

_(Click)_

_Damn. He'd been thinking about one of them again ... Jack? Yes, it had been the Captain ... three-two-one, wipe it away ... He turned from the memory as quickly as his silk-soaked mind would allow him to. Back to the word mazes, top levels of the mind, come on now, you can do it, you're a bloody Time Lord ... word mazes, child's play, plus they were the only safe paths for now. Keep to the maze and hope they stopped chasing him ... he couldn't let them find Jack—_

"What is Jack?" __

_(Click)_

_The problem with Jack, the Doctor decided, was that he shouldn't be in his mind at all. What should he call him, a flash of diamond in the pan or just flash? He'd been both, it seemed ...._

"What is Jack Flesh?" __

_(Click)_

_Ah. He was back in the word maze and they'd followed him there, away from— No. Not there. Simple enough to do, even as psychically off-balance as the silk made him. Wouldn't want the Captain to be found outside the ... not there, why did he keep circling back to ...how about a hospital?_

"What is the Gas Masque? What is Albion?" __

_(Click)_

_Amateurs. All they could do to keep up with him, much less find anything out. They had him, they had ... no, she was on her way, she was free, he knew it, she'd find a way to ... and he'd do everything he could to keep them from Jack._

_(Click)_

"What are you?" __

_(Click)_

 

***********************

"This line of questioning's hopeless," Fahrar said, throwing the latest printout to the desk in disgust. "All we're getting are meaningless word games. And I don't know the damned language well enough to decipher the rules. The infusion's not working. Are you sure you can't get a psyche print off him?"

The look the other woman gave her was as close to exasperated as a corporal could risk giving an officer. "Short of wrapping him in full sheeting, no, not with the kind of baffles I'm reading. At least not until I have an idea of whether that dual-heart mutation reflects any other DNA complications. You said you wanted him alive and thinking afterward."

Fahrar knew when her tech — from R&D back in GC, seconded with her to Special Operations, and worth twice, three times any of the poorly-trained techs here — was telling her the unwelcome truth. So what did she do now?

She looked at the man lying strapped to the interrogation couch. His eyes were open, sightless. She knew that meant he was fully under the influence of the silk infusion, and she wondered momentarily whether he was seeing something that made him happy, or something that he hated.

Oh, hell. She needed something, she'd have to risk it.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Do the minimum sheet print. If he convulses ... hold on another few seconds. He'll either give us what we need, or—" she stopped, unwilling to go the full distance with this one. Not until she could figure out if he was even human. "Belay that. If he convulses, pull the sheet."

 

***********************

_What? Wh— where was the maze? Ah ... what? Oh._

_No._

_No. No, no ... no ... no, no, no ... getting closer, this is bad, think, getting closer, what now ... right, you have to run. Come on, run. Run ... run, get away ...can't let them catch you ... home. Can't stay here, they'll find me, find her, they'll find him ... have to save them, get away now ... right, that's it, home. Get home, just around the corner — stop — run — no, no nearer ... I'm coming, hold on, I'm coming home —_

_Oh._

_No ...._

**************************

"Tenante, your luck's holding." The tech looked up, professional satisfaction and relief warring across her face. "Not only is he not dead, I think I've got something. Here ... let me ... there. That's it," she spoke half to Fahrar, and half to the pretty length of silk she removed from the man's forehead with gloved hands. Still looking at the readout, she moved the silk with practiced ease to the scanner.

For a minute or so there was silence while she made some adjustments to the machine's dials. As images gradually resolved on the screen, she spoke again, still dividing her attention between those images and printed information Fahrar couldn't understand. "Don't think it's going to be much, but — aha! There we go! That. See that? That box thing? May not look it, but that's his transport. And there's a third person. Harkness. Military? Looks it. Maybe Imperial ... this is hazy, but it might be what we're looking for."

Fahrar didn't mind showing the tech how relieved she was. "Thanks. Now we've got a starting point. And his brain's still working?"

"Well ... I can't promise, but the hearts didn't do much more than stutter, so I don't think there was any brain damage. Don't think you're going to get much from him, though. Not for a while. You might want to put him in the infirmary, and not in a cell. Just in case the convulsions do start." The tech suddenly remembered who she was talking to. "Unless you have no further use for him?"

"No, I wouldn't say that," Fahrar said. "I think you're right. But not the infirmary. Have him transferred to Room 4, Floor 4. That's the old commander's quarters, but I'm not sleeping there these days, so you can secure him there. It's good and private. And Corporal? Have some of your GC people do it."

The tech nodded, understanding her completely. "Do you want prints of the box, and the man?"

"Yes. Yes, indeed."

Fahrar smiled. Inverno wanted results? She'd deliver a wild Imperial or two to him, _and_ a cleaned up prison. And maybe, _maybe,_ an alien.

Now to send out the sweeps.

She walked back to her office, whistling.

 

************************

"What's your name, sweetheart? Shhh ... shhh ... s'okay, dear, it's alright. I'm here. Shhh." The girl reeked of vomit and feces, but Rose held her close in the darkness as she whimpered, and used the same words Jackie had used when she was a child, awake and crying because of nightmares. "What's your name?"

The silence continued so long Rose wondered if the girl would ever speak again.

Then: "I think ... Luisa?"

_(tbc)_


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack learns much about family dynamics, something of politics, and, finally, a hint about the whereabouts of his team mates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** My Best Beloved **dr_whuh**. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, No Whoniverse characters are mine. They belong solely to the BBC and their respective creators. I do, however, love them, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

The grey light of false dawn was doing its best to get past the curtains, and Jack’s throat was dry from talking. He finished his third cup of bidasfeina, and looked for a spot to put it down on the card table, now littered with other mugs and one overflowing ashtray.

He’d done his best to tell his listeners the truth, at least about his current crisis. The reality of the Doctor and his marvelous time ship still had to be obscured as subtly as possible.

So the Doctor was now Professor John Smith _(unimaginative much, boy?)_ a brilliant but incredibly eccentric scientific researcher of independent means and incurable wanderlust, from somewhere he never mentioned to Jack; Rose was Smith’s companion, part student, part ward, and would-be girl friend; and Jack himself was simply an employee, someone who had needed a quick exit from his previous life as a government and corporate operative. No, he wasn’t Imperium, he assured them; his bailiwick had been a network of less sophisticated outer rim systems, and he’d needed to leave that neck of the galaxy rather quickly when ... well, it wasn't murder or rape, he told them, and let's leave it at that.

“I hired on with them a couple of months ago, when the Doc got it into his head that they might need some professional muscle around for dicey situations,” he’d explained. “He likes bouncing around and sticking his nose in some pretty weird places, and he wants to keep Rose safe.

“At first it was all business for me, but I have to admit that's changed. They get under your skin _(boy, howdy.)_ Frankly, I really like the two of them. And they’re both sort of babes in the woods.”

“You really have no idea who Professor Smith is?” Nico took another drag on one of his foul cigarettes, and yawned. “You call him doctor. Of what?”

Jack shook his head: “He’s a bit fuzzy on his degrees. He’s fuzzy on a lot, actually, but his credit is good, he pays regularly — nothing extraordinary, but enough for me — and he’s a _(fascinating, attractive, dangerous, sexy alien)_ good man. I honestly don’t know whether he even remembers much of his past,” Jack said, mixing a judicious amount of truth, educated guesses and his own story into the narrative.

“You’re willing to risk a lot to get these two back.” Hilda said. Her bartender persona had disappeared completely by now, replaced by someone who didn’t mind looking older, and who was probably as well educated as Nico, if not born into the same circles in which Jack suspected Nico had once travelled. She’d taken Jao’s spot on the couch next to Nico. Their body language told Jack they were close, probably old friends and perhaps occasional lovers.

“Yeah. I like the paycheck, and I like the Doc. And Rose is ... well, she’ll follow him anywhere. She’s really bright, but not well educated, and entirely too trusting. The Doctor’s always after her about that, but he ignores the fact that he’s the trouble magnet. This trip’s been no different. They headed off to sight-see without any preparation.

“When they failed to turn up where we were supposed to meet, I knew things had gone pear-shaped.”

“But how did you connect them with silk?” Jao asked.

_Alright, Captain. Let’s see if you can actually work it right this time._

“Well, hell, we’re on the planet where it was developed; that’s not a secret, at least not in the corporate world. Or to types like the Doctor. He talked about it a lot _(well, he would have. Maybe.)_ and he has a pretty expansive library, not to mention access to some impressive inter-system information grids.” Jack paused. “I find these things out. It’s part of my job.

“I don’t know why we landed here. It was supposed to be a vacation, but ... he may have been interested in silk himself — no, nothing like that, purely out of curiosity,” he broke off, holding his hands up to ward off their frowns. “Look, he doesn’t even drink, and he hates _(injustice, evil, the wrongs of the universe)_ things like that. No, it would have been that damned curiosity of his.”

“Being curious is dangerous on Lizhbau.” Nico rested his elbows on his thighs, his chin on his clasped hands. “And you didn’t come in at the port, so if your friends were picked up, the authorities wouldn’t even have to look for records to erase.”

Jack had told his listeners that Professor Smith’s transport was kitted out with some less-than-completely legal souped up drive and instrumentation — the Doctor’s own idiosyncratic work, he said — that made it both possible and prudent for them to land outside regular ports. They’d nodded, obviously familiar with the concept of clandestine landing needs.

“How long have they been missing?” Jao asked.

Jack grimaced as he thought about it. “At least 24 hours now since I last saw them.”

Jao nodded. “Yeah, they could’ve been swept by the Maldads. If this professor of yours, or doctor, or whatever he is, likes sticking his nose in where it’s not wanted, they could definitely have been picked up. What’s the girl look like?”

For a second, the apparent non-sequitor left Jack confused. Then he remembered the history book, and he had another weightless moment of fear and anger. “She’s ... _(like the sun, like candy, like eyes you can’t stop looking at, like good clean air and that rush you get thinking of kissing her)_ very pretty. Beautiful.”

Salvha made a noise like a hurt animal, deep back in his throat, and Hilda glanced at him, worried.

“Why?”

“They always brain-wipe the beautiful ones,” the little man said, almost matter of factly. “With silk, or infusion, doesn’t matter. Some of them think they’re artists. They think doing it with the silk’s a work of art. Then they sell ‘em to the highest bidders. The wipes, they move, they do what their owners tell ‘em to. But they’re dead ... dead as far as their lives were, or the people they loved,”

He sounded very calm, very measured. Jack wanted to move away from him. He’d thought he’d heard rage under Nico’s words, but Salvha was worse.

Jao put his hand out as if to steady Salvha, but caught Hilda’s minute headshake and pulled it back. “We know.”

“But he doesn’t.” Salvha looked at Jack, who saw that his eyes were as wild and filled with grief as his voice was calm. “He doesn’t.”

Hilda, perhaps spurred by a need to route Salvha away from some imminent melt down, said, “Nico, Ser Harkness has done all the talking. Isn’t it time to to give him some information?”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he replied. “And then, perhaps, we can decide whether to help each other.”

Nico looked around the room at nothing in particular, probably marshaling his thoughts. Finally, he stubbed out his cigarette, took a swig from one of the mugs on the table, and began.

“Captain, you said you thought we could help you because we were David’s — the Emperor’s — people here. You’re right.”

Jack didn’t react, waiting for more information.

“I grew up here,” Nico said. “Well, not here, not dirt side, but I grew up in Abela Fort’leza. Up with the swells, Jao would say, on Gel’Colinas. I was quite the son of privilege. My mother died when I was four, and I was closer to my nurses and governesses than I was my father, but it was still a very pleasant childhood. Gel’Colinas really is quite beautiful. You can see it from that window in the daytime, if you look out at just the right angle.

“I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. I didn’t go to school, so I didn’t have the chance to find playmates of my own class. My father wouldn’t hear of me attending even the old noble schools, and what he said was law.”

Nico stopped for a second, then resumed. “My life revolved around our household. It was large, with a big staff, so I didn’t really feel the lack. There were the servants’ children to play with when I was young, my nurses to love, the governesses and tutors to keep my mind sharp as I grew older. And we would pack up and move to one of my father’s farm estates in the western valleys when the winters got really cold here in the city, so I got to see a little of life outside the walls.

“As I said, a pleasant life. Eventually, however, boys grow up, and my father had to decide what to do with me. I begged him to let me study off planet. To my considerable surprise, he immediately assented when I asked to be enrolled at Oxford Resurrected. Despite my cocooning from real life, I did know that travel to Earth, and an Earth education was no small request.

“But he agreed - I wanted to be a historian, someone who visited the past, and what better place to study the past than in the ancient center of Empire?” Another brief pause. "My father is not the most cosmopolitan of men, nor the brightest. He had only been to Earth once in his life, despite his riches, and he didn't consider what I might find there besides classes. I learned more about my world in the first year of university than I had learned from any of my tutors or governesses.

"I learned about silk. And I learned about my father's part in it."

Jack could have kicked himself, for not seeing it sooner. "You're Bohlver's son."

Nico nodded, and stood up, absentmindedly stroking Hilda's hair as he moved past her, heading, again, to the window; he'd done it several times during the past couple of hours. Jack thought the man would have liked nothing better than to fling up the sash and fly away. He spoke again.

"Once I understood who and what Governor Dehde Bohlver was in the eyes of the Empire, I stormed back to Lizhbau and confronted my father. That self-righteous stupidity accomplished rather less than I'd hoped." His eyes were shadowed. "My father ... loved me as well as he could, but he had long since fallen in with bad companions. When I made the mistake of pushing my luck, going to Renhald Inverno and threatening him with Imperial exposure, he had me arrested."

Jack thought for a second. Right, Inverno, the major-domo. Due to end up dead, according to the book, but apparently alive and dangerous right now. He put that aside for now and returned his attention to Nico. The tall man's earlier attitude made sense now.

"Inverno wanted him dead," Jao said, joining the conversation and shifting a bit uncomfortably on the ottoman he'd dragged in from the front landing. His voice still sounded rusty, that of an old soldier more comfortable with doing than with talking. "An aristocrat, a governor's son no less, going back to the Emperor with anything about the silk trade being back up and running? Inverno knew he'd be dead quick as cats.

"He wanted Nico out of the picture, but he couldn't risk killing him outright. He couldn't get the Governor to swallow that. Bohlver wasn't his creature to that extent." He looked at Nico almost apologetically. "So he suggested prison."

"To which my father agreed," Nico said.

Jack said nothing, but he must have signaled his disgust because the other man smiled crookedly. "Trumped up charges of murder and sedition worked nicely, with a side of leaked gossip about my actual bastardy and possible history of mental illness. My father may not have been able to bring himself to kill me, but he didn't mind disappearing me.

"How long?" Jack asked.

"About six years, give or take a month," Nico replied, his smile slipping. "As far as the rest of the world knew, I'd committed suicide in prison. Inverno made sure to tell me that, and to give me news vids of my funeral. Just small and hurried enough for a disgraced lunatic son of the Governor. I gave up hope at that point.

"Then Jao found me. He was a member of Inverno's command structure at the time, newly in charge of the prison. What neither Inverno nor I knew was that he was also Black Throne."

"I was right, huh?"

"Yeah," Jao said. "I'd been in place for 10 years by the time I got promoted to FCD, the prison. The Imperium has always seen Lizhbau as chronic trouble, no matter who was in power. Silk's always moving; s'just a question of whether only a little moves, or a lot. By the time I was heading the Lizhbau mission, it was a lot.

"And it was Bohlver's fault. Old Emperor Maxim appointed Nico's family to the governorship back when Emperor David was a kid, and the Bohlvers still had a reputation as reasonably honorable local aristocacy. Nico's grandfather Philipe _was_ honorable. But he only lasted 12 years before his stroke, and Imperial appointments last a minimum of 75 years, so Dehde stepped into the role by law. There was nothing we could do."

"You couldn't get him, or Inverno?" Jack steepled his fingers, two index fingers pressed against his lips.

Jao shook his head. "Inverno? No. The son of bitch is brilliant. The Imperium lost general agents regularly, when they tried to go after him. That's why they sent Black Throne in. That was me; raised here, had been in the planetary forces, officer corps, should have been able to penetrate the people he placed around him. I couldn't. He kept the worms producing and the shipments running and all we could do was slow it down a bit."

"Well then, what about the governor? Nico, how do you feel about your father?" Jack knew it was a risk.

Nico Machado Bohlver jerked, and Jack tensed.

"I used to think I loved him," the man said. Jack heard in his voice the soft, aristocratic cadence that marked the gap between Nico, Jao and Salvha, between Nico and Hilda. "If it was ever true, it is not true now. I do not love him. I would rather he were dead than be what he is, dishonoring my family; my world."

"If that's the case, why not take him out?" Jack asked.

The two men looked at him, obviously shocked. "He's Imperium," Jao said stiffly; he might as well have asked Jack what rock he'd crawled out from under. _And this, kids, is why even benevolent empires go rotten._

"Forget I said it, then," he said, smoothing his gaffe over with a smooth nod of his head and a respectful glance at the floor while he did it. "Jao, you found Nico was alive and — what? Why not just help him escape, take him to Court and ... oh. I see." He grimaced, and the others nodded.

Of course the agent couldn't do that, not with Nico supposedly a dead murderer. David might have been Emperor, but he undoubtedly knew taking Bohlver and the silk trade down openly could endanger his own rule. All empires were bolstered by commerce, including illegal commerce. And power structures always err in favor of the status quo. Even had David been strong enough to move openly and risk the wrath of other governors, or of his industrial barons, the move would have alerted Inverno; he'd have had the chance to take the trade and himself further underground.

"So how could Jao use you, Nico?"

Hilda frowned, and Nico shrugged. "Jao convinced his superiors I would be useful as a symbol of hope to the growing insurgency against my father's rule — the empire can, apparently, accept a change of government that comes from within." He stopped and laughed softly. "As I say, Jao freed me. In doing so, he blew his cover, and the best hope Black Throne had at the time of discerning Inverno's silk distribution network."

"Home office mustn't have liked that," Jack said mildly.

"With me in hand, they changed their mission," Nico said. "We kept out of sight until we could connect with one of the more efficiently organized resistance cells; Salvha's as it happened. We've been busy for about two years."

"Doing?"

"Assassinations here, riots there, pamphlets, rumors ... the usual. Salvha's group is good."

Salvha acknowledged the compliment with a quick jerk of his head, before turning his attention to one of the knives he'd brought out to polish while listening to the others. A big knife, Jack noted.

He stood up slowly, his muscles protesting after hours spent in one position. "Mind if I stretch my legs?" He walked over to where Nico was standing. "And you've got plans for more."

Nico shook his head and again looked at Hilda. "No, that part of the story isn't mine."

"Hilda?" Jack turned to the woman, and lifted an eyebrow.

"No," she responded firmly. "No particulars."

"I'm hurt."

She considered him steadily, then seemed to reach some internal compromise with herself. "Did I tell you where Nico met me?"

"No."

"I taught at Oxford Resurrected. Genetics. I was doing xenobiological genetics research."

"And I imagine you were just as good at that as you are slinging drinks," Jack said. "But you left the first and ended up doing the second."

"I was born here on Lizhbau," Hilda responded. "A considerable block of neighborhoods south of Nico on Gel'Colinas, but not quite dirtside. My parents could afford to provide me an excellent education. I worked very hard to become an off-world professora."

"Hard enough to win a fellowship to Earth," Nico said, his pride evident. "She'd been there about four years when I arrived, wet behind the ears. It didn't take a homesick lad very long to search out someone from home. I found Hilda."

"As it happens, the Imperium had also found me, some time before," she said. "I came home a year or two after Nico, as an imperial agent; my cover story was of a career ruined by booze. Eventually Nico heard I was back. When Jao realized we knew each other, he contacted me. We've been working together ever since."

"Xenogenetics." Jack repeated, slowly, his mind suddenly racing. "I imagine you folks have a cunning plan."

"Very cunning," she agreed, unsmiling. "Not finished. If it works ... well, as I said. No particulars."

"But if you _were_ to tell me," Jack said, working with the supposition exploding in his head. "And if you were to help me find the Doctor ... did I mention that he dabbles in just about every possible field of science? And that he's the most brilliant man I've ever met? I think I _did_ mention that our ship has some very ... esoteric equipment. He might be helpful."

"You don't even know what you're making a deal about. How have you not gotten yourself killed before now?" Hilda said, smiling despite herself. "Your employer might not agree."

"He would, if you're trying to do what I think you're trying — no, no particulars, I know. And he and Rose are in trouble. I know it. If you folks can help find them, I think we'd be more than happy to help the Imperium." _(If there's a way to do it without mentioning that he's an alien, if they'll believe the TARDIS when they see it, if, if, if.)_

Nico spoke again. “You realize that I would have no difficulty killing you if I thought it necessary.”

“Yeah, the whole ‘let’s let Jao shoot Jack’ bit earlier gave me a hint,” Jack said, wondering if he'd just sealed a deal.

Before the other man could say anything more, there was a staccato of hurried footfalls in the stairwell outside. Whoever had just run up the stairs proceeded to bang frantically on the door. "Salvha? Salvha! I know you're in there, open up, please open up!. It's Pau. Please!"

Everyone looked at Salvha, who had jumped from his seat, knife deployed as if by instinct. "It's my father in law," he said, alarmed.

"Sampaio?" Nico did not look pleased. "Everyone make yourselves scarce ... I thought you'd broken off with her family. How did he find you here?"

"I don't know, Nico, I swear I have no idea. I never told him about this place."

Jao had already grabbed everything he'd brought in with him and headed to the back of the flat. Hilda swept the tables of cups and followed him without a word, jerking her head wordlessly at Jack to indicate he should do the same.

"You too, Ser Capitão," Nico said, putting an arm on Jack's shoulder to steer him out of the livingroom. "There's a bedroom we can listen from. Salvha? Let him in before someone calls the Maldads. Find out what he wants, how he traced you. We may have to do something about him."

The little man was once again the person who'd put a knife in Jack's back. He nodded, grim.

Outside, his father in law continued to shout. "Salvha, please. I know you don't want to see me, I know. I don't blame you, but I need your help. Please. Please!"

Jack and Nico slipped into a small room just off the living room. Nico closed the door, but didn't latch it. They could hear Salva, and see a bit of the livingroom through the thin gap.

Once everyone was out of sight, Salvha spoke. "Shut up, Pau. I'm coming, hold your horses."

Jack heard the front door open and caught sight of an older man, thin and nervous, almost fall into the room. "Salvha —"

"How did you find me?"

"I went to the bar. It was closed, there were Maldads all over the place ... Salvha, Laowhra's done something —"

"I asked you, how did you find me?" There was a thump and a muffled cry from the older man, who appeared to stumble back, out of Jack's sight.

"Don't, Salvha. Let me talk."

"Who told you where I was?"

"Luisa."

"You shut your mouth about Luisa!" Salvha snarled.

"No, I won't," the older man said. Pau Sampaio was apparently ready to bare his own teeth. "You listen to me. You're not the only one who loved her. She wrote to me before she was taken. She told me she thought you were cheating on her. She'd followed you here once, thought you had a mistress. But I knew you weren't cheating." Sampaio's voice softened. "You were looking for safe house space. That's what I figured. When I saw the bar'd been shut down, I went home, found the letter and got the address."

"She thought I was cheating on her?" Salvha's voice seemed very small.

In the subsequent silence Jack and Nico looked at each other, then back to the door as Salvha asked again, much more gently. "Why did you come here, Pau?"

"I know what you think of me. I ... buckled, I know. I know what you suspect. But there are things ... I never told anyone about you. But Laowhra—"

"What did she do?"

"I had off-world visitors at the stall today," Sampaio said. In the bedroom, Jack felt blood roar in his ears. "They started asking questions about the Memory Market. They .. the administration, you know, it offers money and — and other things, for that sort of information. They told us we could get Luisa and Merritt back."

"You stupid bastard. You believed them?"

"I — that's not the point. These two, they were more than off-worlders. A man and a woman, carrying identification that seemed to say they were Imperial investigators." Jack bit back a cry, and Nico's hand was suddenly back on his shoulder with a warning strength. He gestured to keep listening.

"I admit, I was going to turn them in," Sampaio said. "I don't care what you think. I was trying to rescue my daughter. What were _you_ doing? Anyhow, I got them to come back to Laowhra's place. But I changed my mind. They said they could help us. The man — he was ... when he said it, I believed him. But Laowhra wouldn't listen. She called the Maldads. They took them."

"Why come to tell me? What can I do?" Salvha didn't bother to hide his contempt.

"I don't know." Now the man sounded utterly defeated. "But you're the only one who'll still talk to me, out of the old opposition. Don't you know anyone who could get word out? That someone's holding Imperial inspectors? Surely, if the Empire got word of it, they could finally do something?"

"You really think they were Imperium?"

"The Maldad commander said they weren't. She said the identification was forged somehow. But I think she was lying. She had a look about her, when she took them."

"What did they say?"

"They — nothing. They were unconscious. But alive, I think they were alive."

Jack shook off Nico and walked out of the bedroom, into the livingroom. "When? When did they take them?"

Sampaio and Salvha both stared at him, the older man shrank into the couch where he'd been shoved by his son in law.

Jack repeated himself, and made his delivery as politely threatening as possible. "Answer me. Where?"

"The prison." Sampaio put his hands up, as if he expected Jack to hit him. "To be questioned. Salvha, who is this man?"

"He's with me."

"He is with us," Nico corrected, joining them. Sampaio's eyes could hardly have widened any further, but his face went ashen.

"You're — Salvha, that's Machado."

"He knows," the object of Sampaio's awe said dryly. "And now you do. Imagine your luck." He turned to Jack. "It seems that whether or not we believe in God or fate, we had better decide to act as if we were brought together for a purpose. Jao! Hilda! Come out ... we have work to do."

_(tbc)_


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose does what must be done to hide in plain sight and, perhaps, to escape thereby.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** For more brutal language and situations than in previous chapters, and for possible triggers caused by descriptions of extreme imprisonment.  
>  **Edited by:** the incomparable **dr_whuh** Thank you, Best Beloved.  
>  **Disclaimer:** While I wish it were otherwise, with a great yearning, The Doctor, Rose, Jack and the TARDIS are part of the Whoniverse and belong to the BBC and their various creators. I take no coin for playing in this world, and mean no copyright infringement.

Once, when Rose was 13, she and Jackie had gone on holiday. Jackie had scrimped and saved — Rose learned only later that her mother had put aside money for more than a year, and had borrowed more from friends — to take the two of them on a coach tour. They'd been to Wensleydale, visited Hardraw Force, Gaping Gill and the like. It had been a mixed success; she had been sullen and loudly wronged at having been pulled away from Shareen and a long-planned party, so she and her mum had clashed repeatedly for the first few days.

Eventually, though, her surroundings silenced all the whinging. She'd succumbed to the landscape of the dales, so unlike south London. The low green hills, rolling into and away from ravines that bracketed waterfalls and were themselves girdled by forest — they were like nothing her city-bred self had experienced before.

Especially the waterfalls. A dumbfounded Jackie had had to drag her away from the waterfalls, and the sounds of them flowed and tumbled through her dreams from that time on; the airy rush of freshets above ground, the ancient thunder of them in the darkness of subterranean caves, the hiss and plash of water in an unending and ever changing torrent of never-quite-white noise.

She felt now as she had at Hardraw Force, but what roared through her head in the darkness was not cascading water, but tumbling and terrified minds, gushes and torrents of half-formed thoughts. Even when she could block the words — and she couldn't, not well — the inchoate terror and confusion beat at her own consciousness like tons of water onto her unprotected shoulders.

Only the presence of someone else kept her moving. _Focus on her, focus on keeping her calm, focus on the arm you've got around her waist, focus on — oh, god, focus on how to get both of you out of here._ Rose pulled one hand away from Luisa's, and wiped her nose. Then she sniffed, hard, to force the smell of the place, and her new charge, into her brain; into the places other peoples' thoughts were trying to take up in her head.

"Gah." She was right. It still stank like a tip behind an abattoir, next to an overflowing portaloo. The internal voices and pressure receded, and she could think a little more clearly. Alright; next move.

"Come on, sweetheart. We're leaving."

Luisa's only answer was a soft whimper, but Rose was willing to put up with that, as long as it stayed soft enough not to attract unwanted attention. The girl's earlier deep sobs had died down, and Rose thought she might be willing to move with a friendly arm around her. She maneuvered the two of them up and toward the door, keeping a wary eye on the cages and the material draping them as she did so. She didn't want to risk touching the cloth. She tried to coax Luisa across the refuse ditch, but stopped when Luisa tugged against her.

"Not that way. This way."

Rose almost dropped her arm from Luisa's waist as she stared at her. The crisp clarity in the girl's voice was at complete odds with her demeanor up until now. "Luisa?"

"What? This way. Past the containment stacks. Over here."

_Containment stacks?_ She looked where Luisa was pointing. She didn't see it at first, but peered and realized that another, smaller, door was set into the opposite wall from the one through which she'd entered. She hadn't initially seen it there because it had been partly shielded from her immediate view by a cage. "Luisa, where does that door go?"

The other girl didn't answer. She started breathing quickly, and whimpering again. "What ... what?"

Rose fought the urge to hyperventilate herself. "The door."

"There?"

"You just told me we should use that door."

"I ... I don't know what you mea— yes. This door. It goes out." 

There it was, that different sound in her voice; Rose looked into the girl's face, trying to figure out what it was, but the rush and babble in her head swelled again, and she couldn't fight it while still focusing on both Luisa and any possible sounds of discovery from the outer hall. "Right, then. We go that way." She refused to think of how many ways this could go wrong, closed her eyes for a moment. "Ready?" Luisa didn't answer; she was panting again. Rose answered her own question. "Ready. Here we go."

Opening the door was, she discovered a moment later, unnervingly easy. It slid open - no lock, no alarms, almost no sound — and light poured through the door frame. Rose tensed, prepared to see someone, or a lot of someones, on the other side, when it stopped moving. She gasped in relief when that didn't happen; wherever this was, she and Luisa were the only people here. She stepped forward, and found herself on what appeared to be an unused loading dock. Almost all of the stench disappeared in a gust of cold air which meant — _oh my god, Doctor, I'm out, I'm out, I'm heading home to Jack, and we'll come back to get you_ — they were outside.

Not quite, she decided after a closer look. The dock itself was semi-enclosed, but she could see beyond the heavy chain link fence into what appeared to be a huge car park that was itself enclosed by a much more substantial wall. The park was fairly industrial; commercial floaters, lorries and juggernauts. Rose wondered if any of the drivers might have been foolish enough to have left keys in the ignition. _Don't press your luck, Tyler,_ she admonished herself.

_Oh._

Walking out of the building proper afforded her more than fresh air, Rose abruptly found, with another rush of surprised relief. The voices in her head fell silent, the mental pressure disappearing so quickly she felt as if her head might float from her shoulders without that weight.

Luisa might have felt the same way, because she shook her head slightly, blinked rapidly, and stood up straighter. "We're outside."

Rose nodded, still keeping the other girl's hand in hers. "We have to get away from the building, Luisa. We could still be spotted."

"It feels better out here."

"Yeah." Rose tried to keep her voice calm while she looked behind her and around the small dock. No one yet, not that she could see. A screen — it looked jerry-rigged to Rose, as if it had been put up in a hurry — extended from the stone wall of the prison to the end of the loading area and blocked her view. She thought there might be more docks beyond the screen. Were there people, too? She couldn't hear anyone, at least, and she was fairly certain she would have, given the racket the guards made inside.

"No silk close by." Her charge seemed to be working very hard at forming consecutive thoughts and voicing them. "That's good. It makes it hard to think."

"The silk does." That was agreement as much as anything else on Rose's part, but she returned to what was more important. "Luisa, I know this is hard for you, but I need your help. Can you remember anything about how you were brought here? Anything about the way in? We need to leave before people see us."

Luisa didn't say anything for a moment, and her breath grew ragged; Rose feared she was going to lose her companion to the recurrent fugue state, but instead, the girl deliberately slowed her breathing down, and whispered, "Lady, it's hard for me. I have a lot of things in my head and they're jumbled ... but I want to go home, I really want to go home. I'll try to remember."

Rose gave her a quick hug. "There's a good girl. Call me Rose, OK?"

"Rose. Vella loved roses." For a moment, her dirt encrusted face opened up and revealed a delicate loveliness, before it slipped away with whatever memory revealed it. But she nodded. "I'll call you Rose." She heaved a sigh and spoke again. "I remember the truck. It was ... crowded, it was crowded. Lots of us. I think ... I think, I think, think ... locked. It should be a simple lock for the fence. Not the wall, though, that'll be hard."

"What?"

Luisa disengaged herself from Rose's arm, and shuffled closer to the end of the loading area, then pointed. Rose stepped over, followed the finger with her eyes through the chain link fence again at the outer wall, and groaned. Her second look at the wall showed her that it was considerably more than substantial. She saw movement in what seemed to be a guardhouse next to the lorry exit. "Bloody hell."

As if that weren't problem enough, she heard clatter and clamor from beyond the screen.

"Shift change." Rose wouldn't have believed that matter of fact acceptance could mix so completely with abject terror in someone's whispered voice. "Maybe a shipment." Luisa stopped speaking; her face went slack, her mouth hanging slightly open. Rose grabbed her and moved both of them back against the stone wall and tried to keep from sinking to the ground in despair. She didn't have the slightest idea what to do next. All she could think for the next agonizing moment was how tremendously unfair the world — this world — was being to her.

_Don't you dare. Don't you dare think like that._ The flare of anger cleared her head of self-pity the same way one of the Doctor's level stares could, the way Jack's quiet analysis did sometimes. _Analysis, I've gotta get better at analysis_ she thought. _Analyse the situation right here, right now, then!_

Shift change, eh? After another 30 seconds, during which she kept her arms protectively around Luisa at least in part to prevent her from moving and drawing attention to them, Rose realized that could be the only source of the noise she was hearing. In a way, they'd been lucky to have walked out and had their initial conversation with no one in earshot, she supposed.

Rose could now hear lots of voices beyond the screen. Some people were chatting and laughing as they came into hearing, presumably from some interior entryway, but their conversation was increasingly eclipsed by the soft grunts and occasional curses of other people who seemed to be wrestling items from inside the building onto the dock. Whatever they were dealing with clanked, scraped and thudded across the floor. The staff definitely wasn't taking any care with their unknown cargo.

"God, it's good to be out here," someone said. "I can turn off the damned buffers, for one thing - I hate having to talk like I'm at a fucking bar."

"Nah, I always keep 'em on," someone else replied. "Turning them on and off too many times burns them out, Supply won't give you new ones until the end of the month, _and_ they make you pay a fine for burning 'em out. Bastards. I had to go without for 10 days, once; went nearly barking, all those voices in my head."

"No, see, what I hate's the humidity—"

"Shut it, all of you." The gravelly voice sounded tense and brutal, and Rose shrank further back against the wall as she listened. "I want these crates ready for transport, no spills, no leaks, _nothing,_ in 15 minutes. You want voices in your heads, I'll send you up to Fahrar. You want that? Eh? Thought not. The lorry's going to be here in 20 minutes; everything has to be loaded and ready for delivery 20 minutes later, because there's another lorry coming in, and we're on call for that one, too. Screenside. Understood?"

"Shit." Someone didn't care if the man in charge heard him.

"Did I ask you? I don't like it either. The bitch is already pissed about the prisoner escape and now she's pulled Third Shift off for some new damned thing or other. Swing Shift's gotten the shaft as usual. Get this done; once the special transport arrives, we'll pull the zombies quick as we can, and then we dump it in Day's lap. So keep your mouths shut, do the damned work, and we'll all get through it ... Javier, you've got the dock. I'll be in my office."

Rose stretched every nerve, waiting to hear some door slam. She heard none, but a rising tide of mutinous whispers convinced her the official man in charge had gone, leaving things to a straw boss. Well, you needed more information, and you got it, she told herself. _I've got 15 minutes, 20 tops, to find a way off this dock, before we're found by the guards when they come over to this side._ She didn't need to guess what the "zombies" were.

The answer, when it occurred to her, was horrifying but logical.

It could work, Rose thought, as she gestured to Luisa to move back toward the door, trying to figure her odds and, at the same time, keep from screaming as she realized what she had to do. Yes, it could definitely work. The men moving the poor souls from inside the prison might not move the ones in that stinking room back there, in which case hiding in plain sight would save them. On the other hand, they might actually be clearing the room, too — _and that's when you start pretending to be a brain-wiped silk victim. Because if you want to get out of a place with guards, and running for your life is not an option, get the guards to take you out._ She'd learned that on any number of occasions from the Doctor, who might actually, when it came to that sort of thing, give Jack a run for the title of brazen. _He'd be proud of me, right?_

When Luisa realized Rose was moving both of them back toward the room they had so recently exited, she stiffened. Rose wasn't surprised, but she couldn't afford to let the girl resist. She pulled her closer and whispered, "Do you want to leave here, Luisa? Just nod." Luisa, eyes wide, did so. "I will get you out, but you have to trust me, yeah? You have to do exactly what I tell you to, even if you don't want to." After a brief hesitation, Luisa nodded again. "Good girl. I promise that no matter what I make you do, I'm going to do it, too. And if I do it, it means you'll have someone with you ... a partner, yeah?" Another nod, although Luisa was starting to breathe hard. Rose hurriedly spoke again, trying to head off any rebellion. "Here's the important thing to remember. I promise — promise, right? I promise that what we do won't last long, and that it will get us out of here. You just remember that, right? You remember that, and don't be afraid. Can you say that? Can you promise? Will you say it? Please?"

Luisa looked at her a long time. She shivered visibly. "Promise." Rose looked at the dark circles under the girl's eyes, showing through all the caked-on filth, and wondered how long the voices in Luisa's head had been tormenting her, and whether she would ever stop hearing them.

Beyond the screen, someone dropped something on someone else's foot, occasioning enough curses and generalized discord to mask their retreat into the room. Rose held her breath as they stepped through the door, and tensed her shoulders, as the torrent of voices and almost voices and unformed, deformed thoughts thundered down on her once more.

"Stay here for a minute. That's right, by the door. Now shut your eyes, will you do that for me, sweetheart? Good. You do that, and you count to 100, alright? By the time you get to 100, I'll be back. Don't look, though."

Later, Rose promised herself, she would find time to scream; later, when she was safely out of this hell-hole, when she'd found Jack and the safety of the TARDIS, and they'd figured out a way to rescue the Doctor. Later would have to be time enough. She repeated the thought silently, raising her mental voice as a silent litany, a shelter from the internal pressure, and a way to put her next few actions on auto-pilot. If she had to think about what she was about to do—

She took out the screwdriver again, and walked over to the cage that had smelled the worst, the one with the frighteningly sweet stench. Light pouring in from the outside made it stomach-clenchingly easy to look into the cage now, and one look told her more than she wanted to know.

Without a moment's hesitation, Rose turned the screwdriver on the lock, as she had when she freed Luisa. The door on this cage sprang open just as obligingly. _Do it. Scream later, cry later, later, later—_ Rose took off her jacket and used it to cover both her hands when she reached in and took hold of the body. It was revoltingly limp, but Rose was careful to grab it by the torso and not by some potentially separable limb, and it stayed together as she pulled it from the cage.

She wouldn't look at it, just hauled it along the floor, and around to the rear of the row of cages, where there was a narrow gap between the cages themselves and the wall. If they hadn't all been draped with the silk, what she planned to do wouldn't have worked, but the silk itself would act to hide the body. At least she hoped it would.

The next minute and a half seemed to take at least a year, as Rose wrestled the body into the gap without touching the cage silk, and threw her jacket in on top of it to provide some extra camouflage. With any luck, the men due to enter the room soon would be spooked enough by what they had to do — they'd certainly sounded unhappy at having to deal with "zombies" — that they wouldn't get closer than they had to to the silk.

One quick look into the now-empty cage convinced her there was nothing more she could pull out of it. Luckily, this one was right next to the one that Luisa had been in.

Luisa ... this was going to be the hard part. Before walking back over to the door, she stopped momentarily to stoop over the open sewer ditch. She dipped her hands into the noisome sludge on the bottom of the trench, then rubbed it over her clothes, into her hair and all over her face. Even a sloppy soldier might notice her if she was too clean. Then she walked back to her charge. Her eyes were still closed, Rose noted with relief.

"Luisa, you can open your eyes now. OK, here's what we're going to do. We're going to hide in the cages—"

"No!"

Rose clapped her hands to Luisa's lips. She glared at the girl, and her heart leaped into her own mouth. Luisa had almost screamed that denial; surely everyone in the building must have heard it?

Now it was Rose's turn to count. When she got to 30 and no one had come running into the room, she sighed in relief, then spoke; this time, though, she wasn't gentle. "Not another word. I promised I'd get us out. I mean it. But you promised to do just as I told you. Don't you dare break your promise. I will leave you here, I swear, if you break your promise." _God, where did that come from?_ Luisa closed her eyes and said nothing, but didn't struggle; Rose had to take that as obedience in the breach.

She closed the outer door as soundlessly as possible, still holding on to Luisa, then waited a moment for her eyes to reacclimate to the dark's return.

Once that happened, Rose walked the two of them over to the cages. "I'll get in first," she said, softening her tone and hoping it would convince Luisa to do the same. "And look, we can hold hands through the cage walls. Just until I say, though."

"Where's Berrios?"

"What?" Luisa once more sounded clear-headed, and something niggled at Rose's hind brain as she registered it again.

"He'd been in the cage. That one," Luisa said said. She pointed to the now corpse-free enclosure. "Did the guards take him back to the lab?"

"He ... isn't there now," Rose said, ignoring the niggle for now and hoping that would be enough answer. "I'll get in that one. You can watch me."

Luisa stared at her, then whispered, "You promise we'll get out, I promise not to scream." It was as clear a restatement of the formula as Rose could wish for. She hugged the other girl, then took a deep breath, got on her knees and backed herself into the cage. Once she was settled, she pulled the door to, and gestured for Luisa to do the same. Her charge whimpered slightly, but complied. Once she was inside, still whimpering, Rose poked her fingers through the loosely woven chicken wire and used the screwdriver to relock both cages. She pocketed the tool and teached out again, this time wiggling her fingers in her companion's direction. Luisa offered her an extremely watery smile, and grabbed at them.

"See? Promised I'd be with you. Now, can you remember that we can't talk or say anything if the guards come in here and take us out of the building? Can you remember that?"

"Yes."

They fell silent, and Rose tried to ignore the mental pressure and the anticipation. She was almost happy to hear the foyer door click open; she spared one second to extricate her hand from Luisa's and put a finger to her lips, before looking at the floor to let her hair fall forward, and trying to make her face as blank as possible.

" ... swear to God, Sarge, I didn't know it'd been so long since someone inspected the room!"

"Just check the damned cages, and be glad I don't stuff you in one of them. If anyone's alive, haul 'em out and hose them down; we'll put them in with the rest of the zombies."

"But these were supposed to be the rejects. They've already been up at the la—"

"One more word out of you, you snot-nosed bitch's whelp, and you'll regret it."

Rose didn't have to see the the gravel-throated sergeant's face to imagine the rage disfiguring it. So he'd just realized what was in here, did he? Served the bastard right. She continued looking at the floor, and hoped that being hosed down wouldn't short out the screwdriver.

 

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** 

 

The Doctor came to with the in-rushing sense of time and space that told him his internal temporal gyroscope had finally re-balanced. He opened his eyes, turning them from the ceiling which first greeted them to see a broad glazed window, through which very early morning sun poured in a blue-white flood of warmth.

"Ah, you're awake." The neatly uniformed woman sitting in a camp chair across the room smiled.

"Now tell me why I shouldn't kill you."

_(tbc)_


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor fails to make his case, a rebel hurries up the pace, and a reunion lacks the right face. Not quite a placeholder chapter, as events torque towards conflagration and summation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** Many thanks to my excellent pinch-hitting editor, **LJG** , for helping make this chapter better than it would have been. 
> 
> For those with interest in these things, _Rio Corazh'frio_ is First Empire Neo-Portuguese which translates, exceedingly roughly, to Cold Heart River, and _Sera Sangao_ is a vaguely religious curse - "Mother's blood" or "Mother of Blood." It's considered a lot stronger than _Sera Lumina_ , which is, more or less, "Our Lady" or "Lady of Light."  
>   
>  **Disclaimer:** While I wish it were otherwise, with a great yearning, The Doctor, Rose, Jack and the TARDIS are part of the Whoniverse and belong to the BBC and their various creators. I take no coin for playing in this world, and mean no copyright infringement.

The Doctor had, over his many long years, learned the difference between appreciation, admiration and affection. Some things might stimulate all three in observers; saints, sunsets and lovers perhaps. Others might generate only one or two; sandstorms, mantises and zealots sprang to mind.

It had been a difficult choice, but he'd finally ditched 'mantis' and gone with 'zealot' for Fahrar.

He sipped the water she had given him and decided he appreciated her, in the old sense of the word. She was vigorous, patently intelligent, and dedicated to her military calling. She was also, he thought, extremely dangerous. He didn't think it was instinctive, which made her unpredictable. That was a problem. Frankly, he would have been in less danger with a mantis. Instinct is fairly easy to map, and thus to predict. _Once you've done that, you're half way home, eh?_ But someone who learned to abandon kindness, who thought to do that? They could zig when their prey expected them to zag.

Of course neither mantises nor zealots normally dealt with opponents who'd had more than nine centuries to navigate both zigs and zags.

"We've been talking for at least an hour—"

"Not really. You were eatin' your breakfast for the first half-hour," he pointed out.

"And you weren't," Fahrar said, almost as if she wasn't irritated by his interruption.

"Not hungry. Thanks for the water, though."

As I was about to say, you still haven't answered my question. Where are the rest of your colleagues?"

"Thought you told me you had my friend back in custody," he said mildly. "As for your question, I haven't answered it the half-dozen times you asked it, because I haven't the slightest idea what you're talkin' about."

"Harkness. I'm talking about Harkness." Now she did look very slightly irked.

"I don't have anyone named Harkness about me 's far as I can see. On the other hand, I think I've obliged you on some of your other questions. Doesn't that get me a prize?" He smiled at her, showing all his teeth.

She laughed, just a little. "No." 

"Well, I've told you I'm not Imperium, and I've told you I'm not a rebel — yeah, I know, you prefer to call 'em insurgents; big word, little word, doesn't matter. I'm not one of them."

"None of that is anything I didn't know."

"Got that from my head, did you?"

"Not easily."

"Not going to make it any easier for you." He stopped smiling and his eyes went cold. "You lot ambushed me and my companion, drugged us, threw us in a cell and then decided you'd scoop out my brain for good measure, presumably usin' the same poison you took us with. There are worlds where I could have your life by right for invadin' my mind. So give me one good reason to tell you anything at all." 

Fahrar stopped smiling, too. "We are not on those worlds. We are on Lizhbau. I don't have to give you a reason for what I've done. And I will use the ... poison, as you call it, again. I'd rather not." She stood, and walked over to him, bending slightly to look directly into his face. "You were talking to people in whom the state has an interest. You talked about things in which the state has an interest— "

"Whose state?" the Doctor shot back. "Not the Empire."

She froze for a moment, then recovered. "We all serve the Emperor, so baiting me into saying something else is counterproductive. Right now, I believe you are an enemy of the state. I'm within my rights to use every tool I have to find out what you are here for, and whether it represents a threat to Governor Bohlver."

"You mean Bohlver's trade." He wondered when she'd try to slap the grin off his face; it was as infuriating as he knew how to make it. "Seriously, I don't have time to lob lies or dodge 'em. Besides— " and he surged from his chair, forcing her back and away from him. She hissed in surprise. " —I don't think you give a toss for your precious governor. An' even less for silk. Am I right?"

If she hadn't been put off her game before, (and she'd already given him plenty of signs that he'd done just that — the fact he'd laughed when she asked why she shouldn't kill him started the ball rolling,) he figured she was half-way to flummoxed now. Could be good, he thought, could be dangerous. Still, she hadn't followed up on her initial threat ...

The Doctor said nothing more, just remained standing and watched the woman carefully as she thought about speaking, then decided against it. He stayed silent as she moved precisely, ignoring her camp chair and going instead to a chair in front of the utilitarian desk tucked into the corner of the room. Once she sat, he reseated himself.

The camp chair, the desk and its chair were at stylistic odds with the rest of the chamber, which was decorated in barely-restrained bordello. The desk was neatly organized, but almost overflowing with paperwork; he was reasonably sure her predecessor was the room's original designer, and the cause of her work load. "They bring you in to clean up the mess?"

She didn't look at him, but her lips quirked involuntarily, before she answered. "Which I intend to do as quickly as possible, and that includes dealing with you. If you're not willing to tell me where you're from, and why you're here, and where Jack Harkness is, I'll have to get rid of you."

"You gonna kill me, then? Thought we got that out of the way like the cheap conversational gambit it was."

She laughed out loud this time, and for a moment she looked like someone he could have liked.

"No, you're right. I won't kill you. It was rather a melodramatic turn of phrase, wasn't it?" Fahrar sighed. "But if I can't find out who — or what — you are, I will strip you of your memories, and put you on a juggernaut filled with more like you, and send you somewhere. And you, whoever, or whatever you are now, will never put Lizhbau at risk."

"Does it ever bother you?"

She stopped shuffling papers, and her lips were thin when she turned around to face him again. "What bothers me is irrelevant."

"You used to be proud to be a soldier, though, didn't you?"

He remembered times in his life when saying something like that, and being aware that it might blow up in his face, wouldn't have bothered him in the slightest. His scarf and country gentleman days for instance — the first time he didn't really care about being mad; or during his Machiavellian seventh incarnation. Now he cared too much, and all because of who shared his life. But still he said it, because it was true and because it might gain him some advantage.

Fahrar pleased him slightly by nodding very slowly. She leaned back in the desk chair and looked up at the ceiling as she spoke. "When my father attended my graduation from military academy, he told me to remember one thing. He said military precepts and ethics have little, if anything, to do with each other, no matter what my instructors had taught me — and that I had best pay attention to the former and ignore the latter. I found his advice clarified my vision immeasurably."

"Wasn't how you were raised, though," he hazarded. "Not how he raised you, am I right?"

"His perspective had changed by the time he gave me that advice," Fahrar said quietly. "By that time, he had 20 years in service, 8 medals, two successful promotions and four blocked efforts, two children, one leg and a three-quarters military disability pension."

"Wife?"

"Oh, no. She'd left long before then, when her politics and his dedication to the force parted ways." Her face closed up again, and her lovely brow knit slightly. "I can only imagine I'm telling you this because I'm getting ready to strip you of all your memories."

"Or because you can trust me. That's a possibility," the Doctor said brightly. The morning light was moving across the floor, and he wanted out of this room. He needed her trust. "I don't think you really want to wipe me clean. There's no reason we have to be at odds. Why don't you tell me when it was you thought you should have listened to your old Dad, and not the one who came to see you sucked into the military?"

She eyed him for one long moment. "No. Why don't I tell you what happened this morning, while I was keeping you alive. First, I sent word to General Command that I needed more troops seconded to me here at FCD. I got what I wanted, because what FCD wants, the state wants, and what the state wants, it gets. Those men and women are worth twice what I have to suffer with here. They are now on enhanced patrol, with orders to find Jack Harkness. They have this—" and she pulled a sheet of paper from the desk, walked over and handed it to him. "—to work with."

He looked at it. It was slightly fuzzy, and distorted in some fashion he ascribed to having been ripped from his brain. But it was, verifiably and inescapably, the Captain.

"From my head," he said. It was all he could trust himself to say. _Not him, not Jack ...._

"Yes." She didn't look quite as satisfied as she ought to have been. "They don't know who he is, any more than I do, but they'll find him, and they'll bring him to me, and I'll find out from him what I couldn't learn from you, and what you've refused to tell me. Oh, and we'll find your transport, too." She looked briefly discomfited as she said that; the Doctor hid the very small satisfaction that afforded him. It was clear she had some picture of the TARDIS, but couldn't reconcile a closet-sized box with what his mind must said it was. She might not be as successful finding the old girl as she wanted him to think.

"The other thing that happened overnight may or may not be connected with you and your team," Fahrar continued. "Not 15 minutes after I sent the search squads out, a shipment of supernumerary non-personnel that left here earlier for disposition was waylaid after being hit with an IED."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Improvised explosive device."

"Ah. Rebels."

"Insurgents. Criminals," she countered. "More and more of them are disrupting everyday life here in Abela Fort'leza. They're blowing up trucks, shops, interfering with ordinary people who are just trying to live their lives." As she said that, something changed in her voice, and in her face. The Doctor leaned forward in his chair, fascinated despite himself, as always, by watching the human heart at work on its unknowing owner.

She went on. "They're confusing people with propaganda that will lead to nothing but heartache. Men, women, children — none of them who want anything to do with politics or idealistic foolishness. There are soldier's children out there who are orphans because these ... thugs, these hooligans, want something they will never get. Never."

She stopped speaking, perhaps aware that her voice had been rising, then and looked out the window at the morning sky, before turning her glare on him again. At that point the Doctor knew he'd lost any chance of convincing her to let him and Rose leave. This woman was indeed a zealot, one who'd schooled herself to ignore the unholy basis of her government's power, by focusing on the surface law and order issues.

He couldn't help but ask, though: "So? What did they get?"

"In this case, precious little. They had, apparently, thought they were getting a payroll run. Instead, they got four dozen amnesiac personality wipes. Or, in the end, maybe half a dozen, since our people responded quickly, took out two of the thieves, and rounded up the strays."

"Where are those strays now?"

"They're being processed for distribution and delivery off-planet." Her voice was as hard as her eyes. "Your female team member was one of them."

He looked at the patch of sunlight that now lay at his feet, and willed his jaw muscles to stop jumping. "You're lying."

"I can contact the distribution center, have her brought back. Just tell me who you are."

"I _said,_ you're lying." He could more than match her. "You haven't caught her, and you won't. You won't nab Jack Harkness either. And you should be glad. Because right now, all I'm interested in is leaving this room, getting my friends, and getting as far away from you and your sorry superiors as possible. If you've done anything to my friends, though — if you've caused them any kind of hurt —I will stay here. And you will regret that."

"That," Fahrar said slowly, "is something you shouldn't have said." She picked up the telephone receiver, punched some numbers, then spoke to someone at the other end. "This is Tenante Fahrar. Send a detail to the commander's quarters ... yes. Returning a prisoner to holding."

He waited until she rang off, and said, "You're not going to get anything more out of me. You had your chance."

"I know," Fahrar said. "But you're not my problem as of now. You've just made a direct threat on Lizhbau's legal authorities, and that has won you a trip to General Command, and the Fortress. I'm handing you over to Assistente Inverno. God help you, then, because he's the only one who will."

"That supposed to scare me?"

"The Assistente is not pleasant, and he's far less patient than I've been," Fahrar said, just as a knock on her door undoubtedly signaled his removal. "If you're not human — and we didn't get to talk about that much, but I don't believe you are human — he'll find out. I would have been easier on you, in part because ... well, no matter. I'm sorry you couldn't have been more forthcoming."

The Doctor didn't bother responding to that. Nor did he resist being surrounded by a quartet of extremely large guards, or taken back to a cell; this one smaller and, by the sound of it, closer to some lorry park than his earlier quarters. He wasn't sure whether being moved farther up the chain of command was a win or a loss. Turning Fahrar could have been useful, but getting out of this building allowed him a shot at escape, the TARDIS, and a chance to intercept Jack before he was picked up by her thugs. Then the two of them could work out a retrieval strategy for Rose.

He needed Jack now, he thought; he needed him a great deal.

 

************************ 

_Four hours before the Doctor and Tenante Isobel Fahrar failed to communicate. Seven hours before Jack walked into "Cheap Eats Now."_

Hilda Ghildau and Nico Machado were awakened by the dull crump of something large hitting something immovable. It sounded and felt as if it was almost directly outside the tiny flat they shared above "Cheap Eats Here."

"All the hells and all the heavens, and everything in between." Nico pulled the blanket over his head. "Can't a man sleep?" 

"Nico, get yourself over here." Hilda had slipped from their bed when it shook, but her exhausted lover was still trying to shut out the world. Normally, she would have let him. "Nico! Now!"

" _Sera Lumina,_ you're a slave-driver — oh." He stood next to her at the little window, looking at the glow above the buildings across the street. "Is that on the motorway?"

"No, it's closer, no more than three or four streets away. And that's no regular pile-up. Listen."

He did. No sirens, no shouts, no evidence of ambulance or rescue personnel. This was one explosion the authorities didn't want on the record. Nico was suddenly wide awake, and angry. "Goddamn. Goddamn. It's Salvha."

"Once he heard about that shipment, there was no way he was going to listen to us," Hilda said, sounding disgusted with herself. She peered down the street, looking for the black Maldad vehicles that were sure to be passing by. "There they go. I should have gotten him out of the room when Genhoa started his report."

"No ... no, it's not your fault, it's Salvha, and him alone. Damn his eyes! We told him we couldn't risk an action this close to base — where are my trousers?"

"What are you going to do? No, they're not there. I put them in the wash; they were filthy. Your old ones are clean in the closet," Hilda said. "Did you hear me? What are you going to do?"

"I should very much like to pitch him into Rio Corazh'frio but I'll settle for confirming that he wasn't caught. If he was ..."

"He won't have been," Hilda soothed. "You know that."

"You're right. What he lacks in strategic wisdom he more than makes up for in tactical abilities," Nico growled, bouncing from foot to foot as he struggled into the trousers. "Which is good, because that means he'll be around when I rip him a new one." He staggered into the wall, swore, gave up and fell back onto the bed, pulling up his trouser zip before he reached for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. "Get word to Jao and the others. We need to talk tonight, after closing time. Make sure Salvha's there, and keep him there. This close to the project's end, we can't risk eyes on us and I will make him understand that if I have to beat it into him." 

"Nico, what if he finds her?" She hadn't turned on a light; it wouldn't do to let anyone outside know someone was up after that blast; the area would be crawling with Maldads.

"Luisa?" He just shook his head. Even in the dark, Hilda could see he wasn't giving that possibility any credence.

"Alright, I know, you're right. I'll send word. But Nico ... remember why he did it. You aren't waking every day with your heart in a cage."

"There are hundreds of others with their hearts in cages, love," he said, looking fruitlessly for a match. "They manage to keep their wits about them."

Hilda blew out a breath, knew he was right, and changed the subject. "Are you sure we can risk meeting in the bar? This close to where government squads are bound to be checking out everything that moves? I'm not just talking about everyone else; you have to be careful. Even with the changes you've made — "

"No. If you don't come in to work, that could be noticed, too." He walked over to her, sighed and took her face in his hands. "As it is, we're just regulars here; the Maldads will be in and out of the neighborhood all day and they'll be checking places like the bar. If the regular bartender doesn't show up, if some of the steady barflies disappear, that will raise suspicions." Hilda nodded, reluctantly, and Nico continued. "If everything tonight is like it was last night and the night before, that's what the investigators put in their reports. We should be fine by closing time, and there is no chance that anyone outside of you or Jao would recognize me, not with the surgery and the eye color. Why you always harp on that—"

She looked at him steadily, her lips pursed and he threw both hands up in self defense. "Look, if you're really nervous, we'll head to Genhoa's after close-up and talk there." 

"That's better," Hilda said. "Here, put an over-shirt on. You're not going out there, are you?"

"No, just out to the kitchen to make some bidasfeina. I'm not going to sleep any more." He shrugged on the shirt she'd handed him.

Hilda eyed the bed longingly, then looked at the clock and grimaced. "Do you have to go in to work today?"

"No. There's no work for the next three days. I think Borys wants time to clean up after the last sewer job."

"I don't blame him. You reeked when you came home."

"Yes, well, the dignity of manual labor." He didn't see her sharp look at him, or the understanding softness that replaced it.

"Go. Drink your bidasfeina, then. I'll call Genhoa in an hour or two — he should be off shift by then — and tell him to start rounding people up."

Outside their window, the orange light was fading, replaced with the harsh white of arc lights. Hilda spared one more look, and hoped Salvha hadn't found his wife.

 

*********************

 

_While an unconscious Doctor resisted Isobel Fahrar's psych tech and her length of blue silk; while Nico and Hilda reacted to what they saw and didn't hear outside the bar._

Rose crawled over unmoving bodies in the black interior of a crashed juggernaut, trying to find her companion.

"Luisa? Where are you?" she called, not bothering to control the tremor in her voice. The lurch and tumble of the trailer had been terrifying because there had been no warning. One minute she was trying to find the least uncomfortable spot on the floor, and trying to ignore the fear she always felt when she was caught in darkness — the next she'd been thrown sideways, then back against the wall before being launched, head first, into what was probably the roof. Only an instinctive flinch, with her arms thrown over her head, kept her skull from being split by a support strut.

"Luisa? Come on, it's time to leave." She was increasingly spooked by the silence. Was she the only one alive? No, she thought with relief, now she could hear some people breathing, and groaning. Each moment, the moans and cries multiplied, albeit without speech. Outside, however, Rose could hear shouts and a tangle of competing commands, then the sharp retort of repeating weapons. Were there two groups outside? Yes, definitely ... you couldn't miss the sound of gunfire. Was that a good thing? Maybe some rebels had come to free the prisoners? She shivered with unexpected hope.

"Rose?" Rose tried to pinpoint where Luisa's voice was coming from, then called out, "Here, I'm here. Follow my voice."

"My knee hurts." 

"Alright. Hold on, I'm coming," she said, trying not to groan. The last thing she needed if she was to get out of this situation was an injured woman. But she'd be damned if she was going leave Luisa in the truck. Rose had promised to stick by her, and so she would.

Somehow Rose found the other woman, and she didn't resist when Luisa hugged her like a frightened child. At that point, she was feeling like one herself.

She had just gently disengaged Luisa's arms from around her neck, when some of the voices she'd heard out in the darkness coalesced around what appeared to be the van doors. She heard one definite order to stand clear, then the metallic clang of hammering drowned out anything else, quickly followed by the hiss of oxyacetylene cutters. Whoever was out there couldn't simply unbar the doors, apparently.

"What is it, Rose?"

"I don't know. Rescue, maybe."

"Or insurgents. That means FCD squads will be here, soon ... no, not FCD. It'll be RH, she hates dealing with FCD ..." Luisa's bewilderingly lucid words sank almost as soon as they rose, back to a confused moan. "Oh, Rose, it really hurts!"

"It definitely means we're getting out of here," Rose said, trying to sound as if she meant it. "Just wait; we've just got to be patient. We're being rescued."

"Vella," the other girl whispered. "Vella's coming."

"That's right, sweetheart," Rose said, putting her arms around the girl again. "Vella's coming." She had no idea who Vella was, but it was the second time Luisa had mentioned her; if she was remembering a sister or a friend, that had to be good. Perhaps she could remember where she came from, and that might be their first destination.

Around them, their unseen cage mates became louder and more agitated, sobs and wailing ample proof that injuries were making the torture of their confusion worse. The air took on the sharp burning smell of heated metal, and Rose finally made out the doors' location, as part of the heretofore unseen steel began to glow dull red.

"Luisa, hold tight. I'm going to move us over to where that door is — see where it's turning red over there? That's it. Come on, now ... mind you don't trip over anyone. Here ... good girl; that's it." Rose didn't bother standing up; even with the ruddy glow of the metal making it infinitesimally less Stygian, she felt safer closer to the floor.

Somehow she moved the two of them in the direction of the door, via an awkward stop-start knee shuffle. At least twice, they have to move around someone - once an unmoving hulk, the second, more frightening time, a figure that grabbed at them. Rose fought not to feel ashamed at having pushed whoever it was away.

Her one thought was to get close enough to the doors to see out when they were forced open, but out of the direct view of whoever was breaking in. Even a second's worth of time to see the situation, she thought, that's what Jack always says.

They made it to a wall — probably the corner formed from the juggernaut's roof and the back wall, she thought, her sense of direction kicking into overdrive — just as the tortured metal buckled, groaned and collapsed under the combined insult of the cutters and the hammers.

"What in the world—"

"Dear god—"

"What the hell — this isn't payroll! Adao — where's Adao?"

"—stinks of shit in there—"

"Are they— Oh ... oh _Sera Sangao,_ they're moving."

"Bloody hell, get them out—"

"Leave them, you idiot, clear out!"

"—ldads on the way, didn't you hear me? Savha, what bill of goods did you sell us?"

The confusion finally resolved, and Rose's eyes adjusted to the relatively bright light outside the ruins of the doors. One or two hard-looking men, shock and anger clear on their dirty faces, pulled themselves into the trailer, casting about to find uninjured inhabitants; beyond them Rose could hear the clattering footfalls of people running from the scene.

"Luisa! Luisa, are you here?"

The little man scrambled in past his companions, looking eagerly into the darkness and breaking it with the beam from a hand-held torch. "Luisa?"

"Vella!" Rose hadn't heard that kind of joy in anyone's voice since coming to Lizhbau.

"Luisa?"

"Vella, it's me!" Luisa pulled away from Rose and struggled to her feet, moving toward the man with her arms out-stretched. "You came, oh god, I've been so frightened! They— Vella?"

He looked at her with incomprehension. "Who are you?"

"I — Vella, I'm ... I ... don't you — I'm Luisa!"

"What? No. No — what have you done with her? What are you trying to — who told you her name?" The man's narrow face contorted, whether with confusion or anger, Rose couldn't tell. He grabbed the arms Luisa had held out for him, making her cry out in pain. "Where is she? Where! Tell me or I'll—"

"You'll leave her alone," Rose snarled. She rolled to her feet faster than thought, going for the man's eyes with one clawed hand, and kicking at the side of his knee. He lurched back with a grunt, and Rose pulled Luisa from his grasp. "Come on."

"No! Vella, please — Rose, I have to stay ..."

"He doesn't know you," Rose hissed at the other woman, desperate to get away from there before someone on one side or the other decided they were fair game. "He's not whoever you think he is. Come with me now, or — or I'll leave you, and you'll be all alone." She forced herself to keep moving, and used her slight height advantage and greater strength to haul the protesting, crying Luisa in her wake. She'd feel guilty later. They had one chance to get out of here. Whatever incomprehensibility had just happened, they couldn't stop to figure it out.

She shouldered their way past a gape-mouthed duo who'd watched the whole scene. They didn't stop her as she guided Luisa over the treacherously jagged remains of the door, then climbed and cursed her own way over them. Once they were both safely on the pavement, she looked around, trying to get her bearings.

"He — didn't know me. I don't—" Luisa shivered, then shook her head. "Where am I? This isn't the barracks."

"Come on. We'll find out where we are once safe. Can you walk?"

"I ... yes. I can walk. It's just a sprain." Luisa's face twisted with effort, but she moved steadily, and spoke meticulously. "I think we need to go over there. That alley. Now."

Rose didn't argue. She put a steadying arm around Luisa's waist, and the two of them made it to the shadowed recesses of the alley. They looked back only once, to see the little man flee and the unmarked military vehicles round the corner. Then they moved on.

_(tbc)_


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor falls, and Rose rises; the one strangled and muffled by silk, the other prodded by stubborn determination.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** my incomparable Best Beloved, **dr_whuh**. Thank you, love.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole properties of the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement, and take no coin. I do, however, love them all, and thank the BBC for letting me play (and create the occasional original character) in their sandbox.

"Well ... this is quite delightful. You really  _do_  seem to be an alien."  
  
Renhald Inverno smiled.   
  
"Depends on where you're standin', doesn't it?"  
  
The Doctor had just about enough focus left to get that out clearly, but that was it.  
***  
  
_Time swirled and he knew that Time should not swirl, he knew what it was, all angles and points, nexuses and loci and fractured lines skipping but never, ever, ever, curving, even the curve of the universe is just an awkward necklace of tiny jointed lines of time, from point to point to now and then and only cheating allows a return to once upon a time and it was so important to remember tenses because they are or were or will be a road map to the straight, straight lines of Time–_  
***  
  
He was clamped to a surgical table, and was no longer sure how long he'd been there. The silk suspension that Inverno was infusing into the saline drip was far more effective than whatever formula Fahrar had used. It had completely muddied his time-sense and short-circuited many of his regular Gallifreyan biological self-defense systems.  _What the Sontarans wouldn't have given to find something like this_  he thought muzzily. _Or the Daleks. Or the bloody Timelords, damn them. Take the Rani. She'd have_ – he tried to lick his lips, to blink, to keep himself in control, inside his own head, but the Rani shook her head.  
***  
  
_Thought curved in a way that Time never did, but it was just as precipitously linear, leading to places best not visited and impossible to escape once entered. Thoughts moved in great, deep tidal surges, forward and back, from concept to memory to imagination to image and contemplation of image; sight and smell and echo and feel, each image a signature of memory, place, a thing of importance, faces, portraits of strong jawlines and long-lashed eyes, cheekbones and flushed skin and full-lipped smiles, the pepper-musty smell of an old wool great coat, the bright and unexpectedly sweet smell of flower petals fluttering from a tree onto her face –_  
***  
  
"I imagine I might be in your shoes, were you in mine," Inverno said, with an approximation of conversational interest. His eyes moved steadily between his captive's face, readouts on the bank of medical monitors, and the two technicians – large, hard-faced men who obviously did double duty as security – working in the background. "The point is moot, however. Your species doesn't necessarily preclude Imperial status. God knows David's court is riddled with pro-xeno types ... has been for decades ... still, I rather think you're an anomaly and not an agent."  
  
"That's ... that's ...."  
  
The Doctor look about the room, aware that he was back from somewhere and not sure how long he'd be staying. He tried to think about what that meant, and then remembered that he was actually trying to think about what Inverno meant ... but it was easier to think about the Rani, for some reason.   
  
_It's the silk,_  the thought finally came, and he could have shouted with joy because it was a thought in the right order, but it was too hard to shout or speak or ... _Oh and wouldn't she just have loved working with the stuff ... damn it. Has to be cumulative in some way my system isn't used to, else I'd have begun building up ... oh, she'd definitely have done a lot to get her hands on silk._  
  
Things blurred into grey and white just then, both time and the space around him. He couldn't spare anything of himself to worry about not thinking because it was important to tie himself to something, but it was so hard–   
  
_It came back to him in a rush now, remembering how he tried to keep up with her in classes, tried to show her he understood just as much biology, and botany, and chemistry, as she did, furious with himself that it even mattered to him. How angry he'd been when she publicly ridiculed him, that day in the laboratory – couldn't even remember what year it had been, which of the classes, he just remembered the hot embarrassment as she laughed and others laughed with her – until his best friend friend sauntered across the room and airily dismissed both of them as also-rans, waving the finals results–_  
  
He blinked, but his vision didn't clear; she hovered over him, next to Inverno, and she was just as real as Inverno,  _and that isn't good at all. I_  – He closed his eyes, or thought he closed his eyes, and was afraid that if he opened them he would see so many hated others there, standing by him as he lay pinned to the table like a butterfly, everyone who poked and prodded and looked at everything and everyone as exercise, experiment, raw material, forgettable and ultimately expendable. He hated it, desperately wanted out. Needed to find his center, the safety of warm coral and Her comforting presence, his people, his people, his friends, his Rose and his Jack ...  _Rose, Captain, I'm ... I'm ...._    
  
***  
"I'm afraid we're going to lose him. This is the problem with xenos; you never know when you're going to run into telepaths, and silk always treats them badly."   
  
The Doctor was back in the lab, or thought he might be. His captor loomed over him, with a look of concern that mimicked real sympathy.   
  
"'Mmmm ...." He couldn't make words anymore. But he could still hear them. Inverno was speaking.  
  
"Still, research would never go forward if we couldn't adapt to unexpected circumstances. And I think it's prudent to find out what he knows before we lose him. So ... transfer protocol I think."   
  
Inverno's words, and those of his assistants, buzzed and whined into meaningless noise as Time slipped around them. The Doctor fought with all he had left to catch on to when he was ... Now the man seemed to be talking to himself, although his assistants listened attentively. One of them spoke and Inverno appeared to answer. The Doctor watched his mouth because it seemed important to track the pattern of how those lips opened and closed in varying shapes. What seemed like ages later, he translated pattern into words for himself. He thought they might be what had been said.  
  
"Regular print interrogation's been useless past a certain point. We were very close the last time we tried the transfer. Even if it doesn't work, we'll have his print ... a true xeno print, a prize all by itself. Do we still have that last one, Meirelles, or did we send her back for final processing?"  
  
The buzzing and whining – not the right words to describe or explain but all he had left, stupidly incomplete human concepts – swelled again. The lips still moved, and the Doctor could sense a pattern, but he could no longer translate them into specific words. It seemed as if the man was disappointed, asking his assistants to find a fresh wipe as a receptor ....  
***  
  
_He could, if he chose, see those around him as they stood in Time. He could watch them within the shifting auroral ribbons of potentiality and eventuality, like short-lived saints imprisoned by their own temporal halos. He had always been able to do it._  
  
There were years, though, and centuries, when he refused to do so. He loved them all, and to see and know the end for them, to see the rivers and streams, the explosions and joys and disasters of time fade into chaos as their lives broke off or wore down to nothingness ... he would, as Bartleby did, prefer not to.  
  
So he became used to not seeing; he even prided himself on it, and threw it in the faces of his brothers and sisters. They turned from him in distaste, the most of them. Some recoiled in disgust, seeing him as unnatural and willingly blind. But they walked in Time with only each other, without love, and didn't understand that what he did was because of those he traveled with.  
  
He gloried in his blindness, and rejected his people. It might have been in spite. Pride certainly. But mostly it was because the weight of love could crush you with memories. His people had forgotten that weight.  
  
Once he told Victoria that he held his family within him and that they slept, and that he forgot them. It was a horrible truth, cleaned and shined to raise the heart of a beautiful, tiny-spanned creature who was precious to him for her brevity. Horrible nonetheless, because he hated endings and forgetting was easier – even then when he was so very much younger than he was now – than remembering, just as not seeing was easier than seeing.  
  
But now he couldn't stop seeing the currents and rivers they were, the beginnings and endings of the ones he loved now. As the anchor holding him to one spot in reality and time loosened, he saw visions in time with increasingly cruel clarity, was drawn against his will into anamnesis. The weight of love threatened and he had no defenses left.  
***  
  
He watched the nimbus of light around Inverno's mouth close like a lens to a pinpoint being eclipsed by things that only a Time Lord could see.  
  
He tried to find his anchor again, but it was too tiring. Even as some part of him screamed not to, he lost his grip and was swept away.  
  
***  
  
_Inverno smiled. So did the Rani._  
  
***********************  
Coming out of an exhausted slumber with a gummy mouth and a pounding headache is bad enough in your own bed but it doesn't half beat waking up in an alien alley, Rose thought.  
  
It was the first coherent thought she'd actually had since opening her eyes to the pale blush of Lizhbau's morning sky. Luisa was snoring softly into the crook of Rose's arm, where she'd pressed herself the night before in a half-successful effort to warm both of them against the knife-like blasts of cold wind that had periodically gusted up the alley through the hours of darkness.   
  
They hadn't stopped in the first alley to which she'd directed Rose. Instead, Luisa had led them on a halt and wary journey through a maze of narrow streets fronted by increasingly older and more deteriorated buildings – all dark, all the rude doors shut more or less firmly against the world, and them – until she stopped in a tiny square barely illuminated by one flickering lamp on a rusty post. Once Rose could make out shapes through the darkness, she saw what could only be called a jumble of dilapidated shanties. Rose hadn't been sure whether they had stopped because Luisa had found where she wanted them to hide or because it was too dark to go on.  
  
"That alley over there," Luisa had nodded to an almost unnoticeable sliver of deeper darkness. "Let's stay there."  
  
Rose hadn't argued. They might have put the chaos of the crash scene behind them without having caught anyone's eye, but Rose trusted nothing and no one in this unfamiliar city, with the possible exception of the confused and injured girl she was with. She didn't quite know who was leading who by the time they'd stumbled into the darkness, since the adrenaline rush that had kept her going for the past hour had petered out shortly before Luisa spoke.  
  
Once they had made it to the narrow recess, and tried unsuccessfully to cover themselves with some trash to keep warm, they had both succumbed to sleep. She had no idea how long they'd been out.  
  
"Ghnnn ..." She ran her tongue over her teeth and grimaced as she smelled her own breath. _First thing I do when I'm back in the TARDIS is brush my teeth and gargle a hundred times._  
  
With that second full thought, she knew she couldn't put off full wakefulness anymore.   
  
"Luisa? Luisa, sweetheart ... wake up. Wake up."  
  
"That's not my ... ghnnn" The girl interrupted herself with the same sound Rose had made a moment earlier, and opened her eyes, blinking rapidly. "Rose?"   
  
"Good morning."  
  
Luisa pulled her head away from its resting place, and looked over Rose to the end of the alley. "Oh. We're not home."  
  
"Not yet. Can you sit up?"  
  
"My leg ... yes, I can sit up."  
  
Luisa said it firmly, and Rose gave a silent cheer. After they limped into the alley and before they slept, Luisa had again devolved to the childlike incoherence she'd first shown, something Rose hoped could be attributed to weariness and shock. When Luisa's whimpering repeatedly woke her during the night, Rose would fall asleep worrying about how to handle her charge in the morning.  
  
Luisa rolled over, then hoisted herself to a sitting position next to the wall. Rose followed her example gingerly, feeling every muscle protest.   
  
After a minute of silence, during which Rose considered the positive aspects of banging her head against the wall to make her head feel better, Luisa turned to her and asked, "What do we do now?"  
  
What Rose really wanted to do was head for the TARDIS, her toothbrush, and some painkillers, but other things had to come first. For one, she realized abruptly, she desperately needed a place to go to the bathroom. Which, she guessed gloomily, she would have to handle behind a pile of trash here in the alley.   
  
Almost as pressing, she needed food. Her stomach growled in agreement. When she was hungry, she couldn't think, and she already had enough stacked against her in that respect, she thought; her thoughts felt as gummy as her mouth right now. She wondered if it was the lingering effects of the drug. Not for the first time since they'd left the juggernaut, Rose lamented the loss of her mobile. In the heat and horror of the moment, she'd left it in her jacket. And that now covered a corpse back in the prison. At least she'd thought to keep the screwdriver.  
  
Finally, she needed someplace safe to get her bearings, because she couldn't find her way back to the TARDIS while dodging potential recapture on the streets. That left nothing to do, she decided reluctantly, other than to get started.  
  
"Do you think it's safe to get out of here?"  
  
"I think so," Luisa said slowly. "And ... I think I can get us home. Home to where–" she stopped. Her mouth opened and closed, and she started to breath faster.   
  
_Oh no, please, not what I need now._  "Where's home, Luisa?" She said it gently, hoping to steer her companion away from whatever threatened to upset her.  
  
"Where Vella is," she finally said. "I need to talk to him, ask him why ... why he pretended he didn't know me." Her voice wavered, and she was trembling, but she hung on. "I know he had a reason."  
  
The reason, Rose knew deep in her gut, was that the little wild-eyed man she had seen reject Luisa last night truly didn't know her. Or rather, he did know a Luisa but not  _this_  Luisa. That much had been clear, even in those crazed few seconds of meeting. The whole thing ate at her; it felt wrong in a way she knew somehow was important to pinpoint. She promised to return to it as soon as she had a spare half-second, but right now, she had to consider Luisa's preferred destination. One thing Rose knew for certain; she didn't want another run-in with Vella. She thought quickly.  
  
"Luisa, I think you're right. I think he was pretending not to know you. I think that means he didn't want to put you in danger. I mean, he was part of the ( _please god, sorry for the lies_ ) rescue mission, yeah? It must have been a secret mission, and maybe he didn't want to put you in more danger. And maybe it would be dangerous for you to go home." Her argument made little sense when considered closely, of course, but Rose was counting on Luisa's scattered state to miss that flaw.   
  
"So maybe it would be safer to go somewhere else, and not your house," Rose repeated, then held her breath.  
  
Slowly the young woman nodded, although she still looked doubtful.   
  
"Then we could go to my father's. Maybe he and aunt Laowhra would know what to do. She and Daddy may fight, but they're both smart ... and I'm so tired, and I want a bath, and I want to ... to for-for-forget everything I saw, it was all-all-all so terr-terrible, oh my god–"  
  
Rose hugged Luisa, letting her cry herself out on Rose's shoulder. She hid her own shock.  _Luisa could be the book monger's daughter! Couldn't she? She has an aunt Laowhra ... but maybe that's a real popular name around here and, besides, he didn't answer us when I asked if it was her real name. Wish I'd thought to ask him what his daughter's name was. Or am I just being too hopeful? Or is it a reason to worry more? Come on, Tyler, think!_  
  
When Luisa was a little less agitated, Rose asked, "D'you mind my asking about your father? Is he a book seller?"  
  
"Yes, he is." Then she looked at Rose with a puzzled frown. "How did you know?"  
  
"You .. you, erm, talked in your sleep. It sounded like your were talking about family," Rose improvised.   
  
"Oh. I don't remember dreaming, but I guess I must have."  
  
"Do you have any idea where we are, or what time it is?" Rose was eager to change the subject.  
  
"Not from here," Luisa said. "We need to get out of here."  
  
The two of them helped each other up, and they limped to the opening of the alley. In the light, the tiny square and the houses surrounding it looked even more disreputable. It was empty at the moment, which was good but made Rose wonder just what time of day it was. It also made her eager to get out of the area before someone passed by and noticed two filthy women coming out of the alley. Somehow they would find their way to Luisa's family home. She would decide what to do when she got there, how to deal with the same people who had betrayed her and the Doctor. "Let's go, Luisa."  
  
_tbc_


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack learns Hilda's clever, clever plan, learns more about Lizhbau and moves a step closer to the Doctor.  
>  **Edited by:** The near-numinous **dr_whuh**. Thanks!  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole properties of the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement, and take no coin. I do, however, love them all, and thank the BBC for letting me play (and create the occasional original character) in their sandbox.

"It's amazing what you can find in the better retail outlets."

Jack looked around the white clean-room and wondered how long it had taken to create, and whether the authorities didn't already know about it. Was some early morning shift of bored Maldad techs even now looking in on them, logging what they said and preparing to break in here, just as they had at the tavern? He'd abandoned the thought even before it had completely formed, but the complete surreality of this laboratory was hard to deal with.

That probably had as much to do with his weariness as anything else; neither the bidasfeina, nor the cold of the morning as they'd walked warily through the streets to the sagging storefront, was helping him stave off a desperate need for sleep. Still, he'd revived considerably once they'd passed through the shabby main foyer, through two reasonably sophisticated false doors and headed three flights down. The unexpected had a way of providing the occasional jolt of adrenaline.

"Need the provenance?" Nico raised an eyebrow, and Jack fought both amusement and irritation at the mirroring of what would have been his reaction in other circumstances.

"No. Emperor, money, secrecy, great risk, and you'll tell me what's necessary or you wouldn't have brought me here," he said. He nodded at a locker to the right of the door through which they'd come. "Coveralls? I assume we're going to need them if we want to go through Door Number Two over there."

Jao nodded. "Something there should fit you."

A few minutes of maneuvering — it really was a tiny space — and all four of them were suited, complete with hoods and close-work gloves.

Jack spared a moment to wonder just how awkward it was right now back in the safe house parlour. If Hilda thought it was safe, though, he was willing to believe Salvha and Pau Sampaio would keep the peace however unhappy they might be to be in the same room. He was equally certain neither of them needed to know about this space, or would want to. Nico had simply said the four of them would be back in an hour; hadn't bothered to say where they were going. Salvha had looked between Jao and Nico, nodded reluctantly and taken a seat; Jao had told him to turn on the government vid channel loud enough the neighbors could hear, then had walked over to where Pau was trying to make himself very small on the couch. He'd leaned over, peered into the older man's face and had said not to leave. He made the comment effective as only a former military commander could.

Hilda went to the compact console next to the second door, and punched in a code. She turned and said, "Everyone close your visors, and keep them down from now on. Decontamination is quick and dirty, given our facilities, and you don't want it in your eyes." A moment later she added, "And don't remove your gloves. I mean it."

The slightly greasy spray that hit all of them, courtesy of the utilitarian grid of ceiling pipes, smelled as bad as most industrial strength sanitizers usually did; a second spray followed, which smelled slightly better, and largely dissolved the greasy film of the first. Hilda grimaced. "Best we can do to neutralize any stray bio-contaminants."

Ah. So he was right, Jack thought. They weren't dealing in weaponry, code or anything inorganic. Of course that was a given, with Hilda's background.

The second door slid open, offering a very narrow entry to whatever lay beyond.

"Come on. I have a lot to show you, and not much time, since I really don't want all of us in here too long," she said.

The laboratory into which Hilda led them was a little larger than the clean room; Jack estimated that it might be slightly larger than the building's original cellar level above them, but not by much. It was as sparse as the first room, with a counter that obviously was the sole non-medical working surface, screens and diagnostic terminals built in above equipment that looked, as far as Jack's agency-trained eyes could tell, high quality but very basic by First Empire inner-system standards. He turned slightly and saw the main laboratory bench; equally high quality, equally basic.

Hilda was watching him. She flushed. "It does the job. And Renhald Inverno's labs don't have what I — what _we_ — have here."

"Hilda." Nico's smile was complicated, but ultimately owed more to affection than caution.

She nodded wryly, probably aware of how defensive she sounded, then gestured to the lab bench. "There are stools in the recesses. Nico, do you want to get the tray out? I'll get the silk." When she saw Jack stiffen — oh, he could see why Nico worked with her, she was _quick_ — she shook her head. "No, there's no need to worry. Or not much. Which is part of our point."

From his vantage point on the other side of the lab bench, Nico pressed an unseen button, then reached down and pulled out a container, perhaps three inches deep — enough to prevent him from seeing what was inside — and roughly three feet by 18 inches around. He handled it gingerly, almost at fingertip length, and placed it on the bench top. Then he looked at Jack. "Well, come and take a look."

Jack covered his flinch well. After a moment of watching the worms slowly heave and ripple across the tray, following neatly laid rows of bluish leaves, he stepped back. "Silk worms."

"Technically they are Lepidoptera Lizbhaua Sedanensis, but yes, worms. _Seda criadora_ , we call them, or _seda diabo_ , depending on whether you're selling or buying, victor or victim," Nico said.

He definitely had the gift of gab, Jack thought.

"Show them the other ones, Hilda," Jao said heavily. He'd obviously heard Nico's spiel before. Nico eyed him briefly, and nodded. Jack approved; the gift of gab included knowing when to shut up, as he'd often been forcibly reminded himself.

Nico moved the first tray to his left, then leaned back, as Hilda brought over two more trays, one of which she pulled from a regular drawer, and the other from what appeared to be a small incubator at the far end of the bench. When she put them down, Jack leaned over to take a look.

The first tray held a length of silk, perhaps half a meter in width and two in length. He drew in a breath.

"Beautiful, isn't it?' Hilda said.

It was. He tried to think of a word for the exact shade of blue, but even without handling it, he could see multiple shades, bright azures and deep cobalts alike that seemed almost luminescent when light caught at the material. And light seemed to seek it out. Jack was sure his head wasn't moving, but the cloth still shimmered.

At first glance, the worms appeared identical. But Jack looked harder; he wouldn't have been presented with two trays if there wasn't a difference.

Ah. It was subtle, but he thought he could see a slight disparity in the texture of the worms' skin, giving the second tray's worth a barely visible variation in hue. They were still unpleasantly translucent, but the overall effect was less icy. He checked the lines of leaves. They appeared identical to those being devoured by the original worms, so it wasn't because of diet.

"They're ... different species?" he hazarded.

"Not in the least. Or rather, only just." Hilda was serious. "These are Lepidoptera Lizbhaua Sedanensis Bonita. We thought we might call them L.L.S. Terrestrensis, but we thought that was taking it a bit far."

Jack frowned. "Simple gene-splicing?" That was it?

By no means could that be it. By this point in the First Empire, genetic manipulation was a given; it had to be, for the Empire to thrive. Terra-forming might allow Earth-specific colonies to develop, but that only happened under certain circumstance. It was expensive, and the Empire only put out the expense of turning a lifeless world — or human-hostile; there were some cases of erasing native ecosystems and intelligences wholesale, although not many — into a life-supporting one if it was absolutely necessary for military or political reasons.

If a planet was almost earth-like, earth-like _enough_ , colony developers found ways to make it livable. Along with minor atmosphere adjustment and a few non-biologic particulars, genetics was the tool of choice. It became commonplace to cross-breed and cross-fertilize what pioneering colonists found on their new worlds, turning native flora and fauna into plants that could feed, not poison, them.

The success of First Empire expansion was due in large part to the excellence of First Empire geneticists. So, if gene splicing was the answer, it should have been tried years earlier.

As if she'd read his mind, Hilda returned his frown. "Simple? Not at all. For one thing, the psychoactive agents in the silk aren't the results of one gene sequence, or even a dozen. The worm was unusual even within Lizhbau's pre-settlement ecosystem; we weren't just adjusting native sedges so they didn't kill the cows."

"I didn't think you were," Jack said evenly. _Sweet mother, preserve us from thin-skinned academics and researchers._

"A lot of time and effort went into finding what caused the psychoactives to do what they do. A lot more time and effort —" She paused, then went on. " — and lives, we lost a lot of good agents before we could get breeding stock off-planet — went into determining how to remove sequences, change them, substitute other genetic material that would take, and wouldn't kill the species."

Jack's face must have betrayed how he felt, and Hilda responded with increased irritation. "We don't want to kill off the species."

He looked from her to the creatures, incredulous. All the misery he'd read about that these things caused, all the chaos ... hell, if they didn't kill the species off, it was a sure bet the Agency would eventually turn its eye to silk. That it hadn't happened yet was just a blessing. "Why not? It's not as if it's a necessary ingredient of your ecosystem."

He was reasonably certain of that. Like ancient Earth's Bombyx Mori, the Lizhbauan silk producer had been domesticated so thoroughly that it couldn't survive in the wild. Jack had no idea what other members of its class or family existed, but none of the things he'd hurriedly read had indicated anything irreplaceable about the silk worm.

"If that had been the mission, we'd have been done and dusted 20 years ago," Hilda replied, looking tired. "Because you're right. Worms could disappear, and Lizhbau would go on. But the people ...."

"The worms aren't necessary. But silk is," Nico said. He looked at the trays and Jack saw his own loathing mirrored in the man's eyes, even as he explained further. "It's part of the economic ecosystem, the one thing that's keeping Lizhbau afloat."

Jack eyed the worms again, watching them inch over their leafy meals. "Are you serious? I thought it was a criminal black market."

Jao spoke up. "It was, 50 years ago. But it's all we've got now."

"Why?"

"Because times change, and our importance as a frontier world disappeared at least two Emperors ago," Nico snapped. Jack blinked and Nico went on. "Because lines of commerce evolve, and the ports we have no longer are needed to move things from here to the inner Empire or even from outer system to outer system. Because we're too far out, and a little too cold, because the original plans to colonize didn't take either of those things into account, but by the time they realized that, there were 150 million souls here, and had been for 100 years."

In Nico's voice Jack heard the desperation of a man who had to carry too much on his shoulders, the weariness previously masked by sardonic eloquence and commanding efficiency. "Because we always had to struggle to feed ourselves at the best of times, and we had two decades of failed crops at just the wrong time, and our birth rates are dropping, and our young people leave, and the tourism isn't enough.

"Because the Empire was hungry for silk, and nothing else we offered."

Before Jack could respond, Hilda whispered, "And the silk is very beautiful."

Her eyes bored into Jack's. She fully expected him to rise to her expectations.

He let out a low whistle, mentally kicking himself. If it had been a weasel, it would have bitten him. _You are getting very, very slow in your old age._

"You want to make it a legitimate trade good. And it took all this time to genetically 'lose' its psychoactive properties."

She nodded, satisfied; Jack was momentarily reminded of the Doctor. "All else aside, there's evidence that people might want to use silk thread and cloth in non-lethal ways. There is no other material like it, not anywhere." She gave a humorless chuckle. "In fact, it may make the most beautiful fabric I've ever seen. It almost shines in the dark. We worked hardest to keep that factor, and that was a bear, because it was very hard to maintain it without the alleles involved in some of the psychoactives.

"I promised myself that when we're done, I'll make myself a gown of the bluest, most beautiful silk you ever saw, and be dressed more gloriously than anyone at Court. If this works. And if Lizhbau survives the economic disaster —"

"— Which _will_ happen, there is no mistaking it," Nico finished.

"You're sure." Jack wasn't asking a question. He felt sick. He'd seen more than his share of planetary collapses.

"Yes. The Emperor's best stochastic masters have spent a great deal of time predicting what will happen to us."

"And he's willing to let it happen."

"To end silk-as-it-is? Yes." Nico nodded. "It was that, or worse."

 _What in the name of heaven and hell could be worse than allowing ‚ no, directing — an entire world to slide into economic chaos? Unless it was being on that world when it happened?_ "After all this time of letting it go, the Emperor decides that now is the time to eliminate the drug trade?"

"David wouldn't have cared. Oh, he's a good man, a good ruler. He hates the silk. Just not enough to risk his throne, not until now. Someone —" He stopped. "Justice always becomes personal."

Jack tasted ashes in his mouth. "Who?"

"His mother."

"I see." Jack suddenly felt exposed. That sort of information wasn't usually handed out to anyone who wasn't in the right circles. Or who wasn't scheduled for elimination. What on earth had prompted Nico to tell —

"Let's finish this, Nico." Jao's face was the stone it had been when he held his gun on Jack.

Nico closed his eyes. "Sorry, Jao. Hilda?"

She schooled her own face to stolidity, something Jack suspected she had to do a lot with Nico and Jao, then took the tone she probably had in classrooms at Oxford Resurrected.

"One of the biggest barriers to destroying the silk trade until recently has been the fact that, although the source is really just Lizhbau and should on paper be vulnerable to single strike strategy — it doesn't have any place it can start again since the worms don't long survive off-planet, and don't think that didn't cause us fits when we did research elsewhere — the growers and distributors have long been aware of that vulnerability, and have made their farms and manufacturing sites impregnable financially and militarily.

"When Inverno took over major distribution and oversight for Bohlv— for the governor, he centralized things even more, forcing growers to make their stock available to his sericulturalists and management people. He wanted to maximize profits, and control the flow of product so that he could develop new markets."

For a moment, she grinned, turning her face wolfish. "Ultimately, though, that was our big break, even though it took several years for the break to happen."

"I take it this was recent?"

She nodded. "About three years ago. A particularly tough parasite hit the farms and killed much of the breeding stock. Inverno decided the only way to protect trade until his geneticists found a way to battle the parasite was to do all the breeding here in Abela Fort'leza. He told producers he'd kill two birds with one stone ... increase their general protection from the authorities, research the parasite and use his researchers' scientific abilities to boost and diversify the silk's psychoactive effects."

 _And wouldn't that be a wonderful thing for the empire_ Jack thought. "I'm sure the producers were beside themselves with joy," he said. Jao snorted.

"How could they not accept his generous, and very weaponized, offer," Hilda responded dryly. "We certainly did."

"You could get to the entire breeding stock at one time," Jack said.

Nico nodded. "Jao still has contacts in Central Command, and we finally managed to get one of them transferred to the research section."

"Our lucky day," Hilda agreed. "Access not only to the worms, but the breeding adults."

Jack realized that he didn't know what the silk worm adults looked like and wondered fleetingly if they might be butterflies with wings of cobalt.

"The one drawback—"

Ah, Jack thought. This was going to be important, this might be the point where he could turn the situation to his advantage. "Beyond pulling off the genetic equivalent of having your cake and eating it too?"

"Beyond that, yes." Nico smiled slightly. "Perhaps I should say the biggest drawback beyond that, is that this is not a one-step process."

Hilda nodded, and took a deep breath while putting one hand protectively on the tray of altered worms. "We needed something more than just entry codes and schedules; we also had to be sure we could get in and out of the facility more than once, because there are several stages the worms go through during breeding. It's not just a matter of introducing our stock and standing back. We have to introduce some of our adults, see that they breed with the regular adults, then we have to step in again and do — well, suffice it to say we had to have at least two and preferably three safe times to access breeding stock."

"That's ... a problem," Jack said slowly, resisting the urge to laugh in delight. It was more than a problem. It all but guaranteed the entire plan's failure, and they had to know that. Getting into someplace he was assured was damn near impregnable even once would be a matter of timing and luck under the best circumstance. Getting in twice, or three times? Codes and schedules were one thing. Jao's contact couldn't provide protection against the increasing probability that they would be discovered in one way or another.

_And here's where I come in, even though you don't know it; friends, have I got an offer for you.  
_

"A problem, but not an insurmountable one." Nico said, before Jack could say anything. He sounded cautious, but confident, which wasn't necessarily what Jack wanted. "Now that we've shown you our ... tools, I suggest that this is not the place to hold a prolonged discussion. We should head back."

"We're going to talk with Sampaio there?" Jao protested. Jack glanced at him, and was struck by the suddenly pinched look on his face.

"Sampaio can be kept in one of the bedrooms until we decide just what to do with him," Nico said. "We won't have to deal with him for much longer, anyhow. I think the accelerating situation outside our door rather mandates a speed-up in schedule."

That generated a worried look between Hilda and Jao.

Nico caught it. He frowned.

"What?"

"Could you hand me the Bonita tray? It needs to go back into the incubator," Hilda said, as if she hadn't heard Nico. "I'll put the—"

"What." Now it wasn't a question.

Jao scratched at the back of his lab coverall, searching for his non-existent neck. Hilda started to bite at her lip, stopped, and and said, "Jao, the tray? As you said, Nico, we've shown Harkness what we needed to show him — now it's up to him to tell us how he can help us, and you're right. I'd rather do that at the safe house."

 _It's not going to work, darlin'_ Jack thought, _and you probably know that already._

Nico's lips thinned. "I asked a question."

Jao shifted uneasily, cleared his throat and opened his mouth. Hilda glared at him, but Jack knew the look on Jao's face. It was the rare operative who couldn't lie well, but Jao obviously felt the need to tell the truth. It's what comes of being head of mission, Jack knew from experience.

"It's too early—" he started, before Hilda tried to talk over him.

" — Nothing to worry abou — "

Jao clamped down on whatever he was going to say, leaving Hilda dangling by herself.

"Not really, anyhow," she finished weakly.

That would have been funny in a comvid, Jack thought.

Nico looked at both of them. He didn't say anything further, but Jack saw the split second when his face sagged in something much worse than disappointment. That, far more than the controlled but perilous anger that succeeded it, made Jack feel as if Nico had just been kicked in the stomach. He felt a flash of brotherhood with him _(just business they said just business they took my memories and smiled)_. And still Nico said nothing.

The moment stretched into something hard and uncomfortable. The back of Jack's neck prickled. "If you folks want to— "

Nico held up his hand. Jack subsided.

"Hilda."

The look she gave him pleaded for understanding, even though Jack knew she'd done nothing wrong. That's what leaders inspired in the ones who loved them, he thought.

"Not here, Nico."

"Oh, definitely here," he said. "And definitely now."

_Someone say something, damn it, so I can figure out what angle to work!_

"Meirelles," Jao said. "She's missed a call-in."

"Just one," Hilda retorted. "And you said it yourself, it's crazy around there and she's new man on the roster, so she has to be extra careful. She knows to keep her head low. And she hasn't triggered her alarm."

Jack didn't need to be told; Meirelles was obviously their agent on the inside.

"Besides, if she'd been compromised, don't you think we'd have known it already?"

From the look on her face, Hilda knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it was out of her mouth.

"What do you call last night?" For the first time since meeting him, Jack felt active anger and frustration from the security man.

So maybe he hadn't been the cause of the raid on the bar, Jack thought. He found himself, against all logic, hoping that it had been him the Maldads were looking for.

Nico looked up at the ceiling, then around the lab. He seemed to be searching for something, but whatever it was, he didn't find it. "Who else do we have? How much did she have in her head? She didn't have this address, did she?"

"No! No ... we worked at the usual removes," Jao said hurriedly.

"Did she know why we wanted the schedules?"

Jao shook his head again. "Of course not." He stopped. "But I'm still worried. There's no telling what they could get out of her with—"

"Fine. When was the last time you heard from her?" Nico cut him short. The disappointment was put away now; all he wanted was information, data with which he could regroup and somehow change course without losing momentum.

"Three days ago. She was supposed to have touched base 12 hours ago," Jao said. "I was going to tell you once I'd checked further."

Nico shook his head. "It's done. And it doesn't matter what's going on, it's safest to assume that she's useless to us now, and that we've been compromised somehow, even if you did maintain cell separation. That raid—"

His eyes shot to Jack, measuring, recalibrating.

"Ser Capitão, I don't know how you play into this, or how you thought you might play into this, but I'm looking for you to make good on your sales pitch. In fact, I'd rather prefer it if you'd better the offer."

Any number of things — offers, explanations, improved propositions — pitched and tumbled through Jack's head. Every one of them suddenly seemed foolish, and he felt abruptly as foolish. It was an emotion he'd felt too often since walking into the bar last night.

Where was the successful conman? Where was the confident intelligence agent? This should be child's play and instead he just felt like an overwhelmed child whose boasts were about to be exposed as empty. He swallowed, horribly unsure of his next step; only sure of his weariness and discouragement, only seeing Rose and the Doctor in his head.  
  
_So, Doc—_  
 _Not my name, Captain._  
 _So, Doctor._  
 _That's better._  
 _You ever going to let me drive it?_  
 _Not until you apologise to Her for that._  
 _Right. Sorry._  
 _Not me._  
 _I know. I was apologising to Her._  
 _Huh._  
 _What, 'Huh'?_  
 _You meant that._  
 _Uh ... yeah._  
 _Good man. Good man._  
 _I could have told you that, Doctor._  
 _What could you have told me, Rose Tyler?_  
 _That he was a good man._  
 _Why's that, then?_  
 _Well he just apologised to Her, didn't he?_  
 _He did at that._  
 _And he came back for you an' me._

Jack breathed in once, twice. He was still standing on a precipice, but he knew what he had to do. The sudden clarity was like a cold, fresh wind.

He had to walk off that precipice and fly. He had to. He had to rescue the two people in this universe who thought he was a good man.

"You want a better deal? I can give it to you, but you need to get me the Doctor. And the Doctor will take you where you need to go. He'll get you past every barrier, he'll get you to the breeding stock." He took another breath. "And he'll give you all the time in the world to make sure your Bonitas take over."

Nico opened his mouth, but Jack didn't let him say anything. "Can you risk going back to the bar with me? Back to that alley where the rubbish bins are?"

Now all three of them stared at him.

He smiled, wondering when the ground would hit him. "I need the Doctor. You need proof that you need the Doctor. I'm going to show you an impossibility, and you're going to agree to help me save the one man who can make that impossibility work for you."

This time, the silence felt like miles of empty air beneath him.

Very slowly, Nico pursed his lips and inclined his head.

*******************

"It's—"

"—bigger on the inside."

They stood like children, staring up. She thrummed and beat around them like a heart.

It was Hilda who finally spoke, tearing her eyes from the luminous rotor, turning them to him.

"We'll find your Doctor. And your Rose."  
Jack flew.

*******************

In Pau Sampaio's dark and claustrophic house, Rose watched Luisa pick up the little holo picture, jerky with age and use. In it, a smiling Pau posed with a tall slender young woman, her hair as dark as Luisa's was pale, her strong dark eyebrows broad wings over darker brown eyes that crinkled with laughter.

Then she watched Luisa take the holo over to the clouded mirror that hung in the hallway, peer at the flickering image, and then at her own face, with shocked china-blue eyes.

When Luisa dropped the holo and fell to the floor, convulsing, Rose caught her.

tbc


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose meets the other person in Luisa's head, and learns how she got there.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Please Note:** Trigger warning in this chapter for mention of previous rape.  
>  **Edited by:** my Best Beloved **dr_whuh** and the incomparable **a_phoenixdragon**  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole properties of the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement, and take no coin. I do, however, love them all, and thank the BBC for letting me play in their sandbox.  
> For those interested, _filhote d'um bruzsha_ translates very roughly as "witch's whelp".

Watching someone convulse is like watching their body make war on them, Rose thought. It’s also guaranteed to make the onlooker feel completely, helplessly, useless. She grabbed a sofa pillow and stuffed it behind Luisa’s neck, hoping to control the girl’s involuntary tremors enough to prevent head injuries.

It didn’t look at all like it did in the movies. It was more horrible. Luisa twitched rhythmically, her legs kicking slightly, her teeth grinding so much Rose could feel it in her own jaw. She would almost — almost — rather have been back in that noisome holding pen.  
Just when she was certain Luisa was going to break pieces of her own teeth, the girl quieted; her legs stilled and her soft pant slowed to regular breathing.

"Oh, god."

Rose didn't recognize the voice. It didn't sound like Luisa ... despite having the same pitch, its timbre seemed rougher, raspier.

Luisa opened her eyes, focused on Rose, then announced, "I'm going to be sick." 

She was true to her word, but managed to avoid hitting herself or Rose with the thick bile. Wordlessly, Rose handed her an antimacassar she'd pulled from the sofa pillow. Luisa wiped her mouth, coughed wetly, and struggled to sit up.

"You're Rose," she said, her voice still different.

"Yes." Rose regarded the other woman and said, reluctantly, "You're not Luisa."

It wasn't a question. She let curiosity override that queasy realization, one born of all the hints and unsettling oddities in Luisa's comments during previous conversations. Curiosity had worked to get her past much of this ordeal, just as it always seemed to work in situations surrounding the Doctor.

The little blonde didn't answer her immediately. Instead she rubbed her eyes, rubbing grime across her pale cheek as she did. Then she sat up straighter. "No, I'm not."

"Who—" Rose stopped, considered her words. "Do you know who you are?"

"I'm ... I think — Wait. Where are we? We're not at GC, and this isn't my place."

Even her accent was different, Rose thought, although the slur might have been the tail end of the seizure. But the question itself was couched precisely and very clearly.

"We're at the home of a man named Sampaio and a woman named Laowhra," Rose answered, not sure whether to be grateful or worried that neither of them appeared to be around. “Do either of those names ring any bells?"

The other woman nodded slightly.

"She's in my head. Not supposed to be. Someone put her there."

_Well, that's probably to be expected,_ Rose thought, only a little hysterically. _This is where the Doctor would know what to say, but you're on your own, Tyler._ "Tell me who you are," she finally said.

"Phil. My name's Phil." The woman was wary. Not frightened the way Luisa ( _Who on earth is — was — she? Does she even exist?_ ) had been. She eyed Rose, seeming to measure her. "How did we get here?"

"We walked. You — Luisa — knew the way. You don't remember?"

The woman — Phil, she'd said; last name or first, Rose wondered — shook her head. "Not really. It's a ... not a memory, not really. But I know she did it. I mean, I guess I know it."

Rose opened her mouth to speak, but Phil spoke again.

"How did we get here?"

Rose looked at her sharply. "I told — " Again she checked herself, changing course instinctively when she saw that Phil's eyes were darting about with complete confusion. She remembered what Jackie told her about talking to Gran in her last days, how to deal with her. _Don't contradict her, Rose, she can't remember what she said two minutes ago. Just keep her happy._ "Luisa, the, uh, woman in your head. She brought us here. She said it was her father's home."

"Were we in GC?"

"I don't know the name of the place," Rose said. "I'm not from around here. But I was with a friend, visitin', and we got mixed up in something by mistake. We were ... I guess you could say we were arrested. I met you in a—"

"—cage. I was in a cage. Oh my god, he did it. That man did it to me— _Sangre_ , my head!"

Blood started trickling from her companion's nose, puddling on her top lip. It was steady, and very frightening.  
"You OK? Keep your head back and ... erhm ... put some pressure on your top lip, right under your nose, yeah?"

She dredged up the basic first aid the Doctor insisted she learn. "How bad does your head hurt?"

"Bad enough. _Sera Lumina._ "

"Alright, just relax. You don't have to talk right now." Rose was frustrated at not being able to get more information immediately, but it seemed safer not to press Phil for details, if thinking too hard about anything put her in such pain. Whoever was in charge of the girl's head didn't deserve any more trauma than she ( _they?_ ) had already suffered.

Phil shook her head, as determined as Luisa had been timid. "No. I've got to. I can feel her and she's trying to get out, but I need to stay in control. The devil who did this may know what I know. If that's the case I need to … to … alert -” she blinked and resumed. “If he did it, he may ... god, I don't know who to talk to ...."

And as quick as that, confusion once again clouded her gaze.

"I tell you what," Rose said, unconsciously modulating her voice the same way her mother had done around her gran. "Let's get you up off the floor and into a chair. At least get a little more comfortable, and I'll look for something for your head. There's gotta be something around here. Everyone's got pain killers in their kitchen or bathroom, yeah?" Rose knew she was perilously close to babbling, but that was fine; under the cascade of words she was able to gently maneuver her companion up off the floor and over to the same threadbare chair she herself had used during her first visit.

When she put her arms around the girl's shoulders, she got another surprise. Phil, or Luisa, or whoever she was, was radiating heat like a small furnace. And underneath the reek of alley garbage hovering around both of them was a sharp, sour tang. Unbidden, Rose thought of her gran again, in that tiny cluttered room, confused and dying without knowledge or control of herself. She shivered.

“I … think we need to cool you off,” she said.

The other woman closed her eyes but nodded. “That would feel good. There are towels in the second drawer down in the kitchen. You could wet some of those down.”

“How do you—” Rose shook her head and headed down the narrow corridor. She wasn’t going to ask the question aloud, because she had no idea whether learning the answer would be useful in the least.

She had just found a drawer of clean towels in what was otherwise a rather grubby kitchen when she realized her de facto patient was joining her, walking unsteadily up the hall and learning on the wall to keep her balance. “Lu—Phil, you should be sitting down.”

“Can’t. I might go to sleep.”

The other woman had wiped more blood from her nose; she looked absolutely dreadful, pasty and sweaty under the grime and gore, but she also appeared grimly bent on moving.

“You can’t sleep?”

“I’ll get … lost. I’ll get lost. There’s too much going on in my head.”

The simple phrase nearly undid Rose. She almost dropped the towel she was holding as she kept herself from laughing or screaming, trying instead to hold on to whatever emotional equilibrium she still had. _You’re not the only one to have too much going on in your head, girl._ She was tired and hungry; she stank, her head was still pounding, she was confused and she needed to eliminate one of those things from her life as soon as possible.

“Here. Take this towel and wipe your face. And then you’re gonna tell me everything you remember, as much as you can, about yourself and about what happened.”

The other woman stared at her, and seemed about to object, but Rose shook her head and continued. “Think about it. If you’re afraid that … that … Luisa is gonna come back, then use your time wisely, yeah?” She knew she sounded harsh and impatient. She didn’t care.

Phil breathed hard; in and out, then again. “You’re not from around here?”

“No. Like I said … visiting. And I just want to find my — my friend.” Which wasn’t quite the truth. As soon as she could find Jack and rescue the Doctor, she wanted nothing more than to do something about the silk dealers. But she wasn’t going to say that right now.

The other woman considered her, eyes narrowed. Then: “So you’re not with Inverno.”

“Who?” Rose was confused for a minute. “Oh. The governor? No, wait, his assistant, right?””

That seemed to satisfy Phil, although she asked one more question. “You military?”< /p>

Sometimes, yeah, though the Doctor pretends like we’re not, Rose thought. _He’s the general, we’re the soldiers._ “Nah. Just visitors, like I said. Tourists. Why?”

“You think fast.”

Rose laughed, just the tiniest bark. “Only when I have to.”

“Which is now,” her companion agreed, reaching for the cloth and doing a reasonable job, all things considered, of wiping her face. “You’re right. Can you help me back to the front room?”

Rose nodded slowly. “Are you sure you don’t want to find a bed to lie down on?”

“No. Can’t stay too long here, because it’s her place and it’ll bring her ….” Phil tailed off.

“Front room, then,” Rose said hurriedly.

She quickly reclaimed the cloth, rinsed it and gave it back to Phil. Arms entwined, the two shuffled down the hall. Phil collapsed into the overstuffed chair and put the cloth across her eyes while Rose pulled one of the other parlour chairs closer.

“Ready,” Rose said, despite feeling as if she really couldn’t be ready for whatever this girl was going to tell her.

“My full name is Meirelles,” Phil said. “Filomena Meirielles. I’m … aaahh … I’m with General Command. Was with General Command, I mean.” She panted slightly, then resumed.

“Cabo-lança Meirelles. Imperador Armada, Lizhbau Legion. That’s what I joined, even if Inverno’s trying to … no, no, stick to the point. Right.” She pulled the cloth from her face, and tried to sit up straighter in the chair.

“I used to be attached to … to … Tenante. The Tenante. Tenante Fahrar. I was attached to her. Tough, but good, that’s what they told me. She’s all that and more. If it wasn’t for … my … my head, it’s hurting more.”

Rose forced herself not to say anything, though her bones ached in sympathy for the other woman. She had nothing for Phil’s pain, and couldn’t afford to feel guilty for wanting to scream at her to get on with it.

“I— no, here’s the thing.” Phil interrupted herself and wiped her mouth. “Inverno and Bohlver, they’re killing Lizhbau. Treasonous, silk-dealing filth. My mother hated it. Didn’t want me to go into the military … look what it did to my dad and my auntie, that’s what she always said …”

“And?” Rose risked the prompt.

“My mother was involved in the opposition. When she disappeared, I knew I had to do something. _Sera Lumina_ … stay out of my head, _my_ head— aauuh …”

“Hold on Phil. Come on.” 

Phil shook her head and Rose saw her start shivering, despite the heat still pouring off her. “I feel — I know the other one’s trying to come back.”

“Stay … come on, just stay with me,” Rose said. She desperately needed some information. What could she do to keep the woman — _this_ woman — talking?

Again she remembered her gran, so tired in the last days. Rose seized on the tail-end of something that might be inspiration and went with it. “Luisa? Let me talk to her, Phil.”

Phil glared at her, shocked and betrayed. “No!”

“Trust me,” Rose said, forcing herself forward and touched the girl’s shoulder, ignoring her flinching attempt to ward Rose off. “Please. Trust me.”

_Let this work, let this work, don’t have time for it not to._ “Luisa, you there, sweetheart?”

“Rose?” The voice had changed again. The diction was different, the delivery was more hesitant. This was Luisa, Rose knew.

“Yeah, it’s me.” She braced herself mentally, then launched into what she hoped was the right thing to say. “And I need you to do something really important. Remember how you trusted me, and I got us out of — out of the cages?”

“Ye-ess. Yes, I remember.”

“And remember how I got us out of the juggernaut after the accident?”

A very small nod, eyes wide.

“And remember how we got here, together, like a team? You an’ me, a team?”

The nod again.

“So you’ve gotta trust me now, like you did then. I know how tired you are. You’re tired, right?”

The other girl’s eyes filled with tears.

“So you need to sleep. Just go to sleep now. Let the other girl take the weight … let her — her name’s Phil, and she’s … she’s my friend — let her take care of you. Like I’m doing.”

Rose was acting on the memory of Jackie sitting next to her grandmother, urging Gran to sleep, calming her confused rages by telling her how wonderful it was to sleep.

Despite her fear that it wouldn’t work, the girl next to her closed her eyes with a sigh. When they opened again, another woman looked out.

“Thanks.”

Rose tried to ignore the stab of guilt she felt. “Keep talkin’,” she said softly to Phil, as if speaking too loudly could awaken her original companion. “You’re Meirelles. Cabo … uhm — ”

“Cabo-lança Meirelles. That’s me.

“And I looked, I looked for people who thought the same thing I did,” she said, as if she hadn’t been interrupted.

Rose tried to keep up with the conversation. “You joined the opposition?”

Phil’s laugh was as much of a bark as Rose’s had been. “Yeah. For all the good it did at first. We were useless, until Machado came along.”

“Machado.” Rose kept her question to one word.

“He’s the best thing to happen to Lizhbau in years. If anyone can get us back on the Emperor’s path, it’s him.” Rose heard the hero-worship there. She heard it in her own voice when she talked about the Doctor. “He got things going again. Even after they caught him, they couldn’t keep him. He escaped.”

“You met him?”

“ _Sangre_ , no. No one knows him, no one I know has ever seen him. But he actually had a plan. And my cell, my group — they needed my cell. They needed me. So when Tenante Fahrar was seconded to the Pit — the prison … FCD they’re calling it now, but it used to be Imperial Regional Headquarters - they inserted orders that I was to stay at GC. And they got me attached to Inverno’s research detail. No idea how they swung it. We’d all heard the stories about agents getting picked off and disappeared for even trying to get into that department. But that’s Machado and his people for you. They were able to do it. The man I talked to, he said this was coming straight from Machado.”

“What man?”

“No idea. Talked to him over scrambled comm lines.” Phil stopped again, licked her lips, and looked directly at Rose. “But he told me why. They needed me to get entry codes.

“And I was able to do it. I was in the labs. The goddamned labs … they got me in as a security third-shift replacement. And I got the codes. I got the codes.”

That was pride, Rose knew, just as surely as she somehow knew the little woman next to her had every right to be proud. “So the opposition could get into these … these laboratories. Where they did … what?”

“They worked with the worms.” Phil’s voice went flat. “The labs were where they kept the breeding stock. That’s why security was so high. But we finally got in. I did. The codes I got will allow … would have allowed … us to get to this year’s entire crop. What my contact said was called the entire generational cohort, whatever that meant.”

“What were they going to do, d’you know?”

“I don’t know. But it would have meant the end of the silk trade. I’m sure of it. They wouldn’t have risked so much to get me in there otherwise.”

She stopped and sniffed. “I smell … augh, I smell - “

Rose grimaced. “We both smell awful.”

“The cages ….”

“Yeah.”

Phil swallowed convulsively. “I’m going to be sick again.”

This time, nothing came up, but she retched so violently, Rose thought for a moment she’d gone into convulsions again. The heaves didn’t quiet completely; she began to speak again, but the shaking didn’t stop. “I got the codes, so clean it was beautiful. That’s what was so horrible. They didn’t even get me for that.”

“What happened?”

“Inverno has some real bastards working for him. One was … real bad. _Filhote d’um bruzsha_ … I wouldn’t go with him. You know? He kept pushing, and I tried to stay out of his way, but eventually I couldn’t. ”

Rose suddenly wanted the other woman to stop talking. “You don’t have—”

“He was a lot bigger than I was. In the end, I couldn’t stop him.”

Rose remembered Jimmy with a lurch of her own stomach. Travelling with the Doctor and Jack had forced her to depend heavily on the tenacity and grit she’d brought with her from Jackie and the estate. It was how she’d got through adventures that she’d never dreamed of having; it had helped her come through her current nightmare. But tenacity and grit didn’t always win, not nearly.

Now was the time for Sampaio to come home, she thought, so she could think about that kind of danger. But no one walked through the front door, and Phil’s gaze was intense. “What — what happened then?” she managed.

“I made him pay.”

“You … injured him?”

“I killed him.”

“What did they do to you?”

Filomena Meirelles shook, but kept going. “The horrible thing was that Inverno wasn’t even upset that his man was dead. He just looked at me when they brought me to him … looked at me the way you’d look at a piece of meat you were thinking of buying from the butcher.

“All I could think of was how badly I’d screwed things up, how I’d never get the chance to get the codes to my contact, how they would probably find out everything, because I know how they use silk in their interrogations.”

The words were coming in a rush now. “I asked him where the advocate was, but he just laughed and said the governor’s research department didn’t work within regular military channels. He even told me I was right to have fought back. He called his own man a pig … but it did call for discipline, he said, because he couldn’t have that type of disruption in his lab — disruption, that’s what he called it. He said he needed to get rid of both causes of disruption, but that it would be a shame to waste me.

“I was sure I was going to die. They held me and he filled me full of the lamia ….” Her eyes were fixed on what Rose didn’t want to think about. “I woke up strapped to a lab table. He just kept talking, _sangre_ , how he talked! He never stopped the whole time. Talking about scientific progress and neurological enquiries and pushing the envelope of silk research and growing markets, always sounding so reasonable that you almost forgot it was crazy.

“There was another table across from me. A woman. She wasn’t breathing. They had her face covered with the silk, and she was tied down, but you could see from where the blood was how hard she’d tried to get away.”

Rose felt her gorge rise in anticipation. “What did Inverno do?”

“He told me he was going to make me into a brand new person.”

As she said that, the tiny blonde’s shakes escalated into another convulsion.

When it was over, a miserable and fear-filled minute later, she was covered in sweat and more blood, some from her bitten tongue and more from her nose. And Phil was gone again. Another woman had taken her place.

Luisa wept. “I’m not even here, am I?”

Rose wept with her.

**********************************

“Sir?”

Inverno looked up from the readouts at the alarm in his second in command’s voice.

“What?” His lips thinned. Yet another disappointment?

“The alien, sir? His core temperature is skyrocketing. And—” He rechecked the gauges, then turned back to the alien’s silk draped body. He picked up one of its hands, then dropped it, turning to Inverno with eyes like saucers.

“His skin is glowing.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is forcibly enlightened through silk, and the experience may be life-changing.  
>   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** Partly edited by **dr_whuh** , bless him. For a number of reasons, the final version was unedited, save for a read-through by my First Born. All mistakes and emotional inconsistencies are mine alone.  
> This was a difficult chapter for me. It was always intended to be a crucial one, but I realized that it required a slight but perhaps not unsignificant change to the beginning of the story. Constant Reader may note the callback to the prologue in this. Constant Reader may also note the change I've undertaken. My apologies if it gives anyone pause; I've decided it better suits the way the story has developed.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole properties of the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement, and take no coin. I do, however, love them all, and thank the BBC for letting me play in their sandbox.

(Twelve hours in. Gauges measure and catheters invade and intravenously-delivered lamia insults a system for which its delivery could not possibly calibrate. Bright light in a cool metal and porcelain room. Light filters pale blue through dark blue cloth into pale blue eyes. Eyes see nothing of the light.)

*********************** __

_The sun was still bright, the wind very cold, when the Doctor found Rose Tyler and the Captain sitting silent and lost in the Memory Market of Abela Fort’leza, a length of blue silk cloth stretched between them._

_It had taken hours for him to find them._

_He’d awakened with a start, flinching in anticipation of Inverno’s next move and craning his head to spot the Rani. Neither of them were there; he lay alone in a white room._

_Then he had blinked and realized he was in Sampaio’s dirty foyer. Inverno and the Rani receded to inconsequentiality as he leapt to his feet. That should have been his first clue, but he ignored it._

_Instead he’d searched the oddly empty house, expecting to see Rose — expecting to see Jack for that matter, until he remembered with sharp discomfort that he had left Jack back in the TARDIS. He’d fancied he heard Her disapproving hum in his head as he headed to the front door and threw it open on a day filled with cold blue light._

_He couldn’t quite figure out how long he had been asleep or unconscious although it must have been hours, since darkness had given way to the light of day._

_Nor could he quite make sense, once he ran from the house and onto an empty pavement, of how he so easily maneuvered through the various alleys and streets of the city without Sampaio guiding him. He knew he should be worried about that as well; that, and the way people around him seemed to blink in and out of his perception. But Rose’s absence, and Jack’s, concerned him far more._

_They were in danger and he was sick with worry. Someone had obviously abducted Rose. He tried not to think of what she might be going through, and castigated himself for not being more careful._

_Jack was in trouble, too. He knew it, even though that made no sense at all. Jack was safely back at the TARDIS and She would see to him, wouldn’t She? But he couldn’t shake his apprehension. What if Jack got lost in the TARDIS, what if he strayed into some of Her stranger, more perilous depths?_

_When the Doctor had abruptly found himself free of the warren of side streets and standing right in the middle of the Memory Market without a clear memory of how he’d managed it — when without warning he had seen his companions directly in front of him, sitting together with their backs against the central square fountain like puppets with their strings cut and not one of the suddenly inescapable crowd paying one iota of attention to them — he’d realized that everything around him was an illusion of some sort._

_He was certain it was the silk. Reasonably certain._

_And yet …._

_Above his head, Lizhbau’s three moons were pale hints in the faded blue sky of the planet’s high summer. The wind blew frayed and icy ribbons of cloud across them in a fruitless attempt to hide their coming brilliance, as this side of the planet hurtled toward its brief dusk and spectacular night._

_Behind him and beyond the city, snow-capped mountains faded with the afternoon light; the cold rivers that branched around the city tumbled into great ravines beyond its walls. Inside the walls, lamps flared to life. Slender trees along the avenues and boulevards of Abela Fort’leza cast shadows, their feathery leaves moving with the constant wind and the shadows dancing across the walls and windows of the market._

_Music spilled from some nearby café, providing a final lovely touch. As the artists told the tourists, as the tourists told their friends when they returned home: “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the market in cold Lizhbau’s great city.”_

_It was a dream, but he could feel the wind blow against his cheek and the back of his neck. He could hear the echo of wind chimes dancing to its rhythm. He could hear snippets of conversation, phrases of song and melody floating on it through open windows in the buildings around the square._

_He had to be hallucinating, but he smelled the market; perfumes and onions, sweet oils and sour vinegars and meat grilling and gasoline fumes and charcoal and the sweat of animals and people._

_It was surely lamia poisoning him … and yet, he felt the ground beneath his feet; paving stones, and under them dirt, then vast deep miles of rock that surrendered to fire, and turned in thrall to the harsh blue sun above him._

_And he felt time as he always did, radiating and whirling like light or tides around everything in the universe. Time had never played him false, had it?_

_Everything around him and inside him was increasingly palpable, insisting upon its own substance. The harder he tried to find his way out of illusion, the more everything rang true to more senses than humans could apprehend._

_So perhaps it was not a dream, he thought, and that made his hearts clench in fear, his head pound with anger and frustrated self-loathing. Because if it was real, then he was here, looking at his companions, and they had been taken from him._

_His breath hitched. He couldn’t deny the evidence of his senses, even if they were, somehow, playing him false. He kneeled before Rose and Jack and stretched out his hand to touch Rose’s cheek, Jack’s hand, but pulled back at the last minute. If he touched them, and felt their skin hot against his fingers … who could tell what would happen to him? Or to them?_

_He should focus on waking up. He should get to the TARDIS, bring Her here and rescue them. He should do something, he knew, but he could not bear to leave them alone and unprotected._

_“I can’t tell if I’m here,” the Doctor whispered to them. He heard his own desperation. “I can’t tell if you’re real. I think you’re in my head, but I don’t want to risk the chance that I’m wrong. I can’t risk losing you—”_

_They gave no sign of hearing him. He fought panic and something else, as his throat grew thick and he looked away from their sightless eyes._

_He couldn’t lose them._

_He told himself he’d felt this before, with others. He’d lost too many. All of them. All of them garnered his affection and respect, sometimes his love. All of them claimed some small or large part of his hearts. From Zoe to Turlough, from Jamie to Sarah Jane, to Ace, to Fitz … they had always taken parts of him away with them when they left._

_It had always hurt to see their beautifully, brutally evanescent lives part from his, but in the old days there had always been someone else to come along to capture his interest, to inspire him to be something better. The hurts of goodbyes could heal when someone else said hello. He’d always been able to live with the one as long as he had the other._

_But now?_

_After the War he had tried to avoid becoming close to anyone else, for fear of what chaos and destruction he could bring down on them. Death had always trailed in his wake, and he could no longer take shelter from that. Even now he fought not to see Romana’s eyes pleading with him, not to hear the vanished voices of those he had loved and hated so dearly, all lost at his hands — his hands, bloodstained hands, oh how could he live with it, why couldn’t he bring himself to die—_

_Enough! He almost snarled, and resisted the self-loathing. He couldn’t die. Not with Rose here, not with … with Jack here. He forced himself to look back to them and was stunned at his own yearning._

_These two were precious to him._

_Rose was so much more now than the curious shop girl he’d pulled from the Auton’s grasp. She was fearless and open to the often fearful universe he showed her. She was kind and empathetic, with a backbone of steel, a wicked grin, and a fiercely intuitive intelligence. She never hesitated to stare him down and tell him when he was wrong; withal she trusted him deeply and completely. She smiled her glorious smile and laughed with him as if he wasn’t a damaged and homeless wanderer, but someone who mattered to her._

_As for Jack … for all the jibes and insults he aimed at Jack, he’d come to realize that the Captain’s matinee smiles and guile-rich machinations hid a soldier’s honorable heart and a boy’s desperate need for support and respect. The one time conman already watched him with more trust than he deserved, and lifted his spirits with every flirtatious glance and quip. He was indeed larger on the inside, and he could no longer imagine the TARDIS without him._

_And look what he’d given them in return._

_Somehow, something he had done had turned them into silent marionettes. He was afraid that somewhere inside their heads they knew he was there and blamed him rightly for their situation. He could not abide that possibility, but knew it was true._

_He’d done this. He’d surrendered to the lure of Rose’s excitement, had both led and followed as they walked right into an ambush. He’d belittled the Captain, trying to resist how Jack made him feel, then left him alone in a place beyond his understanding._

_“I’m so sorry I did this, I promise I’ll save you,” he said, looking from deep and vacant brown eyes to unseeing blue. “I can fix this, but you have to help me do it. I need you to hear me. Can you? Can you hear me?”_

_His senses would not turn off; he heard Rose’s and Jack’s strong young hearts beating first too fast and then too slowly. He heard their shallow breaths, and felt the blood running ever more sluggishly in their veins as the lamia contaminating it paralyzed them, and the silk they held between them erased who they were._

_“Come back, please come back,” he whispered, while around him flowed a never-ending parti-colored stream of people: laughing, talking, coming by foot, in carriages, by two-wheeled carts and floaters, all looking for bargains, or heading home after finding them._

_“Rose, Captain … I need you, I need ….”_

_What did he need? He stared at the sky, trying to find the words that would bring them back to him._

_“I can’t … what you’ve done for me, what you’ve ….”_

_“I —” He stumbled. As he tried to catch some sort of emotional balance, the words came before he could catch them and force them back behind his teeth._

_“I love you.”_

_No._

_He shook, stunned at what he’d said, terrified they had heard. Terrified because what he said was true, and he hadn’t known it before now and how could that have happened? And how could he live with it?_

_It couldn’t hurt, something whispered in the back of his head. It couldn’t hurt to be honest with them, because surely this was illusion and they weren’t there to hear him._

_Yes it could, though. He knew it could._

_He always did it, he never learned. How could he be so old and never have become wise?_

_What possible good could his love do for anyone? Why would anyone ever accept such useless and dangerous desire?_

_Did he not remember what happened to anyone and anything, he cared for?_

_He gasped at the pain, at the fearful, longing tenderness that burned through every rationalization and barrier he’d raised against it._

_It burned in mind and in his hearts; brighter, hotter, and more dangerous than the lamia. It threatened to consume him._

_Perhaps, he thought in his agony, he should let it._

***********************

 

(Twelve and a half hours, or maybe thirteen. The silk drapes beautifully, making the gurney a catafalque. The cloth glows purple and orange with the light from beneath it. Somewhere, perhaps a mile away, perhaps closer, the flames ignite inside another mind.)

(tbc)


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a soldier contemplates her conscience, while Rose finds home again. Home, however, knows where it needs to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited, as always, by my magnificent Best Beloved.  
>  **Disclaimer:** I take no coin, and intend no copyright infringement. All characters are the properties of the BBC and/or their respective owners. I simply love them all and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.  
> 

Isobel Fahrar had taken the last of her pills.

“Message these reports up to GC, then check incoming notifications. I want to know when the plumbing repairs have started. And don’t forget to copy Sous-Tenante Obrigad on that if it comes in; he might benefit from seeing someone do his job. I’ll be back in two … no, make that three hours. Any emergency — and you know what I mean by emergency, handle inventory foul-ups on your own — and you know where I am.”

She moved briskly through the halls to the lift, schooling her face to granite as she passed other staff, enduring the knives at her temples and the raw agony at the back of her skull, the grey veil of pain across her sight. She punched in the top floor, deciding abruptly that she would head to her official living quarters rather than the cupboard she’d appropriated for quick catnaps. It was hers for as long as she was in command of this hole; she might as well take advantage of the bed.

After she’d pulled off her boots and stripped down to her vest, she rummaged about her night bag … ah. She grunted in satisfaction as she found one more capsule, then swallowed it without water before collapsing on the bed.

Damn the man.

Fahrar began to shake the thought out of her head, then winced at the action. She dutifully started the deep breathing exercises the doctor had insisted on her learning, but kept at them for only a few minutes before he intruded into her thoughts again.

Man, indeed. She allowed herself a soft snort, one that didn’t start her head pounding. She didn’t think so. He was some sort of xeno. That was amazing all by itself, of course, but until only a few hours ago, she would have considered his status as an anti-government agent even more important. She’d certainly thought so when she started speaking to him, right here in this room. She looked over at the chair he’d lounged in, glaring at it before shutting her eyes against the resurgent pain. 

Isobel Fahrar disliked a great many things in life, including many of her early decisions, but she had always been able to pride herself on her own personal honesty. Something in the alien’s eyes, though, had unnerved her today, and that angered her far beyond any understandable irritation at his stubborn opacity. Seeing herself as he so obviously saw her shouldn’t have affected her. Countless people had made it clear what they thought of her — usually as she’d unearthed their mistakes, forced answers out of them, defeated them. She’d cared not in the least. But this morning … she felt herself flush with shame-tinged anger.

Just when had that honesty she’d prided herself on, that precious remaining virtue, slipped away from her?

The phone shrilled. She jerked, swore in pain, and rolled toward the side table, grabbing for the receiver. “What?”

“Tenante? Sorry, but you just got a call from Central. Alvhares.”

“Patch him through.” She managed to keep from snarling it. “Alvhares, what the hell are you calling me for? Where the hell is Mireilles? She’s — “

“She’s … uh … she …”

“What?” She hated repeating herself.

“We got a report in on her. From her commander.”

“I’m her staff officer.”

“Sorry, Tenante. I mean the ranking officer here.”

“ _Sangre._ ” Inverno? Because that’s who Alvhares meant; the bastard delighted in subverting military command structures. What could possibly have turned his eye to her aide? Whatever it was could not be good.

Not for the first time she wished she’d been able ferret out who’d ordered the tough little corporal away from her side and back to GC. She’d been worried. More than worried, if push came to shove. She liked the girl. Mireilles came out of Undertown, no doubt about it, but she was smart as a whip; efficient, creative with limited resources, and dedicated to the service. It was why she’d caught Fahrar’s eye in the first place, why she’d started using Mireilles as a de facto aide and why she’d eventually started grooming her to take that spot officially. Just before Mireilles packed her kit and headed back up the hill, Fahrar had gotten that itch in the back of her head that made her antsy unless she did something about it. So she’d told her subordinate to report regularly. Mireilles had at first, but Fahrar had heard nothing from her for the past two days.

“What’s the report?” She did not like the feel of that itch returning.

“She’s —” Alvhares stumbled momentarily, then continued. “The report says she was arrested. For murder.”

Oh this was much, much worse than she’d thought it would be, even with the odd tone in the man’s voice, and the itch in her skull. “Murder.”

“The report says she attacked a fellow soldier while on duty,” Alvhares said. “The report says he was … aggressive and she overcompensated. The, uh, the resulting fight caused his death. And a great deal of damage to valuable scientific equipment. That’s what the report said, Tenante.”

The report said it, Fahrar noted distantly. He couldn’t bring himself to say it directly. He didn’t believe it, no more than she did.

“Where is she being held?”

“She’s … Cabo-lança Meirelles is being held at the pleasure of Assistente Inverno. For investigation and—” He coughed. “—research.”

Isobel Fahrar fought her stomach and almost lost. “A case number?”

“No case number.”

“No. No, there wouldn’t be.”

She remembered the alien’s eyes on her. She’d sent him to Inverno, too.

“Uh, and Tenante? The first shift squad just reported back. Someone saw that informant of yours, that Sampaio weasel, take off from his place like a scalded cat. He headed for the warrens. The woman’s at work. You want them to check his place?”

For a moment what he said didn’t register. For a very short moment after that it didn’t matter, not when someone under her command, someone good, had just been — She shook her head, hard, just to feel nails pounding into her eyes. She remembered Sampaio’s daughter, looking out from a report she’d checked, before putting him on the payroll.  
“Tenante?”

But she was Tenante Isobel Fahrar, daughter of Barolomeu Fahrar, Engenheiro-chefe, 1st A.B. Artilharia (retired), and she knew her duty.

“No. It’s more important to keep him under surveillance. if they didn’t send someone after him, I’ll know the reason why and take it out of your hide.”

“Aye, Tenante.”

She hung up without saying anything else, and sat for a very a long time on the edge of her bed, looking at the buttons on her smart military jacket as it hung, empty, over the chair.

_________________________

When Rose awoke this time, she was lying on a tiny cot, and light from the late afternoon sun was shining through the round window at the other end of the room. She had only meant to close her eyes for a minute … had Filomena tucked the blanket around her? She rested one precious minute longer, relishing the fact that she was clean, her stomach was full, and her bladder was empty. It had been some time since Luisa’s last seizure, and the concomitant return of Filomena. Rose realized she must have succumbed to exhaustion after the bread and soup the other girl insisted on making for them both while she was still Luisa.

And who was she now?

“Lui — Phil? Filomena?”

“Over here. Resting. And it’s Phil, for now at least.”

The little blonde looked … not healthier, not with the fever flush, the exhaustion, and her still-noticeable shakes, but she was certainly cleaner.

Rose had had to help Luisa into the tub, and she’d needed help with the wash-up, but it had been worth it. Luisa — or Filomena, she wasn’t sure — had insisted to Rose that they were safe in the house. Or at least they were until sundown, which was apparently when Aunt Laowhra came home from work. So they’d washed up, and dumped their clothing in a machine that acted suspiciously like any 21st Century Earth washer might.

She had begun to relax infinitesimally, only to catch Luisa as she collapsed while pulling things from the dryer. After that, Filomena reemerged, which resulted in them bolting the front and back doors, or rather, Rose doing it, while Phil lay on the front sofa to regain some strength. Rose didn’t mind her military caution under the circumstances.

Filomena was still Filomena when she remembered something that Luisa knew. Sampaio had a little garret, she told Rose. He normally rented it out for extra money. It was empty now, because people didn�t want to rent from, depending on their view, a rebel or an informant. If they were quiet up there, they could probably stay longer than sundown, she had whispered to Rose. So up they’d gone to the attic space; by the time they climbed the rickety stairs to the top and locked the door from inside, Rose wasn’t certain who she was talking to in the other woman’s body.

She wondered if the two personalities might not begin cooperating now that both of them understood about each other, but worried that both might just break down under the physical stresses their shared body was undergoing. _Oh, Doctor, you’ve shown me awful things before, but this is right up there for pure creepiness._

She sat up and ran her hands through her hair. It was lost cause, but at least it wasn’t filthy anymore. As for makeup - she resisted the urge to laugh. She had far more important things to worry about. “How are you feeling?”

“I think … I think I can last,” Filomena said. “Last for a while, anyhow.”

Rose didn’t even bother to question what the other woman meant, because she was all too sure she knew the answer. “How long? Can you last til we get to the TARDIS — to where I’m taking us?”

Filomena coughed slightly. “Where’s that?”

“I don’t think it’s too far,” Rose said, blessing her apparently inborn GPS system. She thought she could make her way from here to the Memory Market, and once there she could navigate back home. She had to, she thought, because she felt as if she had been away from the TARDIS’ comforting presence for years, rather than a matter of — what, days? She thought about how long it had been since Laowhra had ambushed them in the foyer downstairs and realized she hadn’t the slightest idea how much time had passed. How long had Jack been left alone? Was he already out looking for them?

She fought a stab of panic. She had been so concentrated on getting back to the TARDIS that she’d completely ignored what Jack might do. Of course he would have headed to the market, expecting to meet them, and they wouldn’t have been there. What would he have done then? Would he have headed back to the TARDIS or would he have gone searching for them? She had only known Jack a short time ( _hasn’t he been with us forever?_ ) but she knew he’d be incapable of simply standing and waiting.

Unbidden, she thought of rivers and wind, thought of Jack’s face. Not the smiles and the winks, not even the laughter, but the constant motion of his eyes. He was always searching for something, Rose thought, and her throat got thick with an understanding she hadn’t expected or even wanted.

“Focus, Tyler, focus,” she muttered to herself. “If he’s not there …”

“What did you say?” Filomena looked blearily up from where she’d been staring at the floor.

“Nothing. Just thinking aloud,” Rose said, trying to think of anything but Jack locked up, helpless as the Doctor. Please god, keep him safe, keep him free. She pushed herself up off the cot and walked over to the grimy little window, She didn’t see anyone on the narrow street below her and wondered how much Sampaio’s reputation had to do with that. “Can you walk? We need to get to the Memory Market.”

“The what — what did you call it? The central — oh, that’s right … that’s what her father called it.” Filomena shook her head; she wasn’t going to clear it of Luisa, Rose thought, waiting. “Yes. I can walk there, but … they’ll be looking for us.”

“Then we’ll have to be careful, yeah?”

“Where do we go from there?”

“Back to where my friend is,” Rose said, “He’ll help us.”

“All of us? All three of us?” Filomena gave a humorless huff at her own bleak wit, then struggled to her feet and shuffled over to the window. Despite the bath, she reeked of exhaustion. She looked out the window and then back at Rose and said more seriously, “Can he help get her out of my head? Can he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Rose answered honestly. “But it’s safer where he is, and we’ve got a medical bay, and … and once he and I can figure out how to get my other friend out of the, the — “

“Out of the pit?”

“Yeah. Because that friend, he’s … he’s a doctor. An’ maybe he can help you, even if Jack an’ I can’t.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever hurt so much in my life,” Filomena said conversationally. Rose waited. “And I don’t really think anyone can help me. But I’ll go. We’ve got to get out of here, and I have no place to go now. I don’t dare go home, I can’t contact my people. I’m … ahhhh, _sangre_ , it hurts … I’m ….” She trailed off.

“Come on, Filomena, stay with me,” Rose said quickly. 

The other woman grimaced in pain, and panted hard. Rose held her breath; panting seemed to presage either the other personality coming out or another convulsion. This time, it did neither. Phil leaned against the wall next to the window, shutting her eyes. Gradually her breathing slowed. She opened one eye and looked at Rose. “You’re the first person in ages to call me Filomena.”

“Oh. “ Rose wasn’t sure what to say. “I can call you Phil, if that’s better.”

“No. Might as well go _santificado_ … I need everything I can think of to remember who I am,” her companion said. “Filomena’s fine.”

“I think it’s pretty,” Rose ventured. “Your name, I mean.”

This time, Filomena’s laugh was almost real. “Yeah, well … pretty doesn’t count for shit in the army. But thank you.”

Another moment, and Rose said. “So, you’ll come with me?”

Filomena nodded. “Yes. We need different clothes, though. I’m still wearing part of my uniform, and that’ll attract attention. And if you were arrested, they’ve probably got holos of you out to the patrols. So. Downstairs. Not Luisa’s room. None of her things would fit either of us. We need to go to Aunt La — to the other bedroom. That woman’s closet. There are clothes that could fit.”

“I’ll go,” Rose said. “You rest.”

There really wasn’t much to choose from; a carelessly hung collection of faded shifts and tunics, one or two blouses, one outfit obviously for special occasions. Rose chose two of the smallest tunics, then rummaged through the dresser to find a couple of belts and kerchiefs to hide their blonde hair. She’d keep her jeans and trainers on; as long as a tunic covered her own brightly colored tee-shirt, which definitely screamed ‘off-world’, she’d be less noticeable. Keeping her own clothes on would also help keep her warm. After considering Lizhbau’s windy chill, she grabbed a shawl hanging on the back of the door for Filomena, and thought longingly of her abandoned jacket. Once back upstairs, she helped Filomena change then pulled the other tunic on. She belted it tightly.

“I guess that will do,” Filomena said, eyeing her critically. “If we keep our heads down and slouch like regular proles, we’ll look like cleaning women heading home from work.”

Well, she’d been willing to look like a brain-wiped zombie, Rose thought; looking like a tired char was nothing, by comparison. “Alright, then, let’s go.”

It was almost as difficult getting her companion downstairs as it had been getting her up, since Filomena was now having trouble balancing. 

“Sorry,” she said weakly, after Rose had steadied her for the third time. “I think I’ll be better on flat ground.”

“I’m sure you will,” Rose replied. “But you hang on to my arm anyhow, just in case.”

Outside, the wind was marginally less biting than it had been when they first arrived, but since the sun was slipping lower the temperature was probably going to plummet too; just one more reason to find the TARDIS.

They made it back to the market, but it took what seemed like hours of shuffling, occasional stumbles, ducking into doorways when the inevitable Maldad patrols hove into sight, and always, always going far slower than Rose wanted to. But she was grateful for the good luck they had; much of their walk was through the seemingly-deserted and worn-down industrial neighborhoods that looked even sadder and uglier in daylight than they had when she and the Doctor had followed Sampaio to his house. The fewer people they had to deal with, the better.

Still, the numbers of passers by gradually increased as the neighborhoods they passed through improved. Rose kept her eyes trained on the ground, following Filomena’s example. By the time they got to the market, they were walking against a tide of apparently homeward bound market goers and tourists. While they had attracted a few curious looks earlier on, the current crowd was big, loud, carnival-like, and oblivious to two small and colorless women.

“Rose.”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m going to be sick again.”

Rose looked sideways at her companion, and immediately moved closer, to hold her up. Filomena was thin-lipped with the effort of not emptying her stomach. Rose risked a look up and, to her relief, spotted a gateway to the Market. Just inside the gate and next to it were the jumble of smaller stalls where the less prosperous merchants and hucksters had plied their trade. Those stalls appeared to be deserted, Rose saw, long since emptied of whatever goods had been for sale, the shopkeepers either gone or involved in tearing down their tents.

She started sidling the two of them towards the tents, not an easy task since she also was trying to avoid eye contact with the outward flowing crowd — and most definitely with the uniformed men that were becoming far more visible as the tourists vacated the square. Rose cursed to herself, and resisted the urge to turn around and walk in the other direction, camouflaged by other moving bodies. She had to get into the market area, or she wouldn’t be able to get her bearings —

“Hey, you. You two.”

_Oh god no, don't be talking to us_ , Rose thought, her heart suddenly in her throat. She walked on, willing herself to be even smaller and more colorless, if that was possible. _We're not the 'droids you're looking for —_

“I’m talking to you, girl.”

_Oh shit._ “Yes sir?” Rose stopped and turned around, trying to look as humble and forgettable as she could. When she saw the man who had hailed her, the heart so recently in her throat dropped to the pit of her stomach. He was beefy, well over six feet in height, with a soft wet mouth the weakness of which was totally and unpleasantly belied by his sharp gaze. And he was in uniform.

“Your friend drunk?” he asked, eyeing Filomena far more closely than Rose liked.

“No sir, she’s just sick. I … I’m just taking her home. She got sick at work.”

“You’re taking her home. To the market.” Those cold eyes narrowed.

She hated the quaver that she couldn’t keep from her voice. “Sorry, sir. I just needed to … to get something for her here and then we’re going right home. I promise.“

“I think you’d better come along with me,” he said. He smiled, and Rose thought of a shark.

“Capitão … don’t mind her.” Rose stifled a squeak at Filomena’s unexpected croak. “ I’m drunk, save your pardon. My sister’s just feeble.”

“So the sot speaks, too.” The man’s chuckle wasn’t nice. “Knee-walking before the sun goes down … impressive.”

“I told her I need something more t’drink, t’take me back t’the bar, but she’s got all turned round, like the fool she is. I’d leave her if I could get home on my own, but our ma’d probably kill me. I mean worse than she’ll kill me already.” Filomena’s gasping laughter did sound pretty soused, Rose thought. She herself tried to look as dim as possible, and prayed the Maldad would get bored with toying with them.

Their questioner snorted in contempt. “ _Sera Sangao_ , save me from drunkards. Get out of here before I haul you both in for public disorder.”

“Yes sir,” Rose whispered, silently thanking the universe for small mercies.

“Get lost, and don’t let me see her puke in front of the tourists, or I’ll change my mind,” he said. It sounded almost genial, but Rose kept her eyes on the ground. She didn’t want to look him in the eye again.

She manhandled Filomena into the cluster of remaining stalls. Almost before she could check to see if the Maldad was looking their way, Filomena fell to her knees, retching uncontrollably. Rose hated the fact that her first thought was alarm at how loud her companion sounded, and not worry about her condition. She did care about the girl; she was still simmering with anger at what had been done to Filomena, poor lost Luisa and all the prisoners she’d seen. _It’s just that I’m so sick of sick._

Eventually Filomena coughed and wiped her mouth. “I’m not going to make it to where you want to go,” she whispered. “I’m fading.”, To Rose’s consternation, she could feel heat radiating from Filomena again, almost as if a switch had been hit. The other woman was shaking so hard that Rose feared another convulsion.

“Shhh,” she whispered back. “Save your breath. Let me think.” Frantically, she looked about them and tried to sharpen her sense of direction. It hadn’t taken the Doctor and her all that long to get to the market when they first left the TARDIS; they’d made that their first stop before heading out into the countryside. So the TARDIS had to be close by.

She closed her eyes and tried to push everything else out of her head for the few precious seconds it would take her to get her bearings.

Rose had always been good at that. Long before the Doctor grabbed her hand and told her to run, she’d grown up in one of the world’s great cities; she never felt lost there. She might not feel at home in some neighborhoods, but she always know how to get home. Her mum used to joke about it, especially when Rose was younger. “I’ve got my own little brown-eyed compass,” she’d tell her friends when she headed off to shop, Rose in tow.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t get confused and make wrong turns; it was simply that she could, given enough time, right herself and head back to the place she wanted to be. She never thought about it much. When she was very young, she thought everyone knew their way home. When she got older, she learned that wasn’t always the case. Still, she figured it wasn’t anything special. But since joining the Doctor, Rose had learned just how valuable it was to have a good sense of direction; how very important it was to find your way home.

It hadn’t started out that way. At first it was just a marvelous ship travelling in space and time. Home was still the frowsty little flat she shared with her mum; a place she thought of when she was scared, or lonely. And there had been times with the Doctor, at first, when she’d longed to return to the Powell Estates.

Somewhere along the line, though, the TARDIS became something more. Still magical, still frightening, and always impossible, it gradually became the place where her heart turned for comfort. And sometimes during their adventures — the bad ones, the ones where a wrong move meant someone could die — she swore she felt the TARDIS. When they were in danger, she would yearn for the little blue box and she could feel something tug at her. She couldn’t place just what was being tugged, or how, but everything in her turned toward wherever the TARDIS was.

She sometimes wondered why the place called to her, although she’d rather eat ground glass than mention that to the Doctor. He’d tease her unmercifully, she thought. She could even imagine what he’d say, some snide remark about superstitious apes. And he was probably right. He was the alien with the big brain. She was just Rose Tyler, with the overactive imagination and a good sense of a direction.

It didn’t matter. Nowadays there was only one direction home for her and it wasn’t Earth. So she crouched next to Filomena and tried to figure out where it ( _She_ ) was.

She felt it.

Rose hissed softly in surprise and sat back on her heels.The world shifted slightly around her. For a second she remembered the rush of silent voices in the noisome holding room where she’d found Filomena, although this felt good, warm behind her eyes, pleasantly tight, like a hand holding hers, or arms around her shoulders — then it was gone, and she decided that she was simply finally getting her bearings. She opened her eyes and craned her neck, looking past her shivering charge and the stalls that sheltered them to the central fountain, and a large gate beyond that. There! That was where she and the Doctor had first entered the market. It had taken them only 10 minutes to get there from the TARDIS. She resisted the urge to laugh with joy. _Jack, you hold tight, I’m almost there!_

“If you can just get up and make it a little longer, we’re almost there. I promise. I remember the way now. ” Filomena said nothing and the silence unnerved Rose. “Come on, please?”

“I’m — I … she’s not here..”

Rose would have heard the difference in the voice even without the words. She looked closer, gently turning Filomena’s face. Sure enough, Luisa peered out from those eyes. She seemed as surprised as Rose to be back in control of the body that both now knew had never been hers. “I’m — she’s very sick, isn’t she?”

That was an understatement, Rose thought. “Yeah.” She repeated what she’d said to Filomena. “We’re almost back to my — my ship. I have a friend there who can help us. Do you think you can stand up, Luisa?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Sure you can,” Rose insisted, desperate to be out of the market. The sun was past the horizon; the shadows were cold and the wind had kicked up even more. She hauled Luisa upright and almost dragged her in the direction of the far gate. By the time they finally got through and into the broader streets on that side of the gate, Rose was sweating despite the cold. But she gritted her teeth and continued, with an occasional glance behind her to see if any Maldads were following.

When she saw the entrance to the tiny side street only a few more yards away, the laugh she’d repressed back at the market bubbled up and out. “Luisa … Filomena … we’re here! We’re back at the TARDIS!”

She summoned one more burst of energy, and pulled the other woman with her, rounding the corner in time to see home fade from sight, as, unknown to her, Jack headed for “Cheap Eats Here.”

_____________________________

_She feels her little one, knew the child had/will come/is there. She will regret/regretted /regrets not staying but feels the nexus pulling Her toward the more important task. Her Thief will/is/may/must not give up, and is doing so/will do so/cannot stop/should be stopped. The dark child inside Her, who could/will/did/may/will not become immortal/die/live as a human must go to the place he wants to in order to stop the destruction. She allows him to move her, She sees/knows/is aware/will know/knew that the little one outside is finding her way/will find/may be lost/will come home … this is all forgotten/remembered/imprinted as She slides through the Vortex with purpose/panic/love. Things must happen/must not happen … he must not/could/did/won’t/may/can’t change so soon before/after the great fire or She has died/is dying/will die._

(tbc)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which sleep is very much to be considered, valued and sought after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited by: the ever-faithful **buckaroobob/dr_whuh** , with help from the delightful **a_phoenixdragon**  
>  **Disclaimer** : As much as I might wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine; they are solely the property of the BBC and their respective owners. I assert no ownership and take no coin. I do, however, love them all and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

_The Doctor never slept much._

_Rose had noticed it when she first started running with him. She’d put it down to “Alien, yeah?” and had, after her first few ill-advised attempts to keep up with him, insisted that he allow her time to rest between adventures. His gripes were perfunctory; he obviously understood that humans didn’t simply want downtime, they needed it._

_Shortly after they watched the Earth burn, Rose discovered her own room on the TARDIS. She assumed that the Doctor had set it up for her and thanked him, only to be told that She had prepared it. Thank Her, the Doctor had said, the capitalized pronoun Rose’s first uncaught hint that the phone box was more than a machine._

_That day she’d nodded, uncomprehending, then retreated to the bedroom to sort out her thoughts. It was larger than her room at home, its dusky blush walls slightly darker than she was used to, but it proved surprisingly welcoming despite the lack of windows and the simple furnishings — the bed, a side table and one chair. She’d burrowed beneath the bed’s comfortable flowered counterpane and slept for hours, waking with a half-remembered cadence in her head that was her introduction to the ship’s constant rhythm._

_As time passed, she made the bedroom more personal, at first with things she’d retrieved from her mum’s flat and later with treasures she found in other places, other times. By the time she and the Doctor met Jack, she was used to sleeping at odd hours, and after odder adventures. As long as it was in her TARDIS bedroom, with the TARDIS’ rhythm playing to her as she slept, she always awoke refreshed and eager._

_And the Doctor was always there in the console room; waiting for her, equally eager._

*****************************  
Everyone is wrong, Rose thought as she wiped the tears and snot from her face – you never quite “cry yourself out.” There are always more tears waiting to trip you up.

She knelt in the alley, waiting for the next bout to hit her, barely feeling Luisa's arms around her. If that was who was in charge now, Rose thought bitterly; a dead girl. And that did it again. She couldn’t stop her ugly gasps and sobs, didn’t know if she would even if she could. The TARDIS was gone, and Jack was gone. She was alone and everything she’d done since waking in that cell was for nothing. 

“Rose, please, you've got to be quiet,” the other woman said softly, sounding calmer than Rose had ever heard her. “You've got to, you've absolutely got to, because that Maldad will be back, and he'll take us in. We know that.”

Perhaps it was her calm; perhaps it was the ‘we’ that caught her attention by nibbling at her curiosity; had Luisa and Filomena come to some sort of accommodation with each other?

Or perhaps it was the realization that not quite everything had been for nothing. Rose forced herself to tamp down on her rage and disappointment and focus on the one person, whoever it might eventually be, that she had managed to win free of the cells. 

_It’s not fair!_ some part of her wailed resentfully. _Why should I have to take care of a crazy woman?_

No. A dying woman, Rose amended silently. And that finally, forcibly, stopped her tears. Luisa was already dead and Filomena was dying. Even a shopgirl with no A-levels could figure out what the repeated convulsions and sky-high body temperature meant. The girl beside her had two minds battling for one brain, and she didn’t need the Doctor to tell her that couldn’t end well. She did need the Doctor if she wanted to save this woman who she had, of her own free will, made her responsibility. 

The world seemed, if possible, even heavier on her shoulders. But the weight felt somehow steadying. 

“OK. Alright. Sorry. Just lost it a bit.”

“Because that blue box disappeared into thin air.”

“Yeah. It was ( _home_ ) our ship. And my friend must have …” She trailed off. What could have made the TARDIS disappear? She didn’t think Jack knew how to pilot Her, but perhaps she was wrong. But why would he have left? She refused to believe that the man who’d willingly accepted his own apparent death in the form of a bomb he removed for her and the Doctor would run away from them now, although she reluctantly acknowledged that it could be the case. Then again, the TARDIS sometimes did what She wanted to; wasn’t that what the Doctor said? 

Rose blinked as that last thought lingered and routed her considerations into odd channels. Until now, she’d thought what the Doctor said about the TARDIS was one of his quasi-apologetic jokes, employed when his own navigational skills failed. But why should it be? Why shouldn’t She be able to do things like that? _We talk of her as She, after all. As if she’s alive. And any girl alive has the right to change her travel plans._

A girl, the Doctor’s “Old Girl.” Rose thought about that. Could the TARDIS have been going to find the Doctor? Was Jack inside, helping Her? Was he an unwilling passenger? Or was he somewhere else? The internal barrage of questions quite overwhelmed her despair, which was probably good, but they also weren’t helping her or Filomena. She gave her nose one last wipe and turned to Filomena, asking, “What do you think we should do right now?”

Filomena looked pleased at having been consulted. “We can go home. To her home.”

“Whose home? Luisa’s or your’s? Erhm … who am I talking to?”

The little blonde woman grimaced. “Me. Filomena. Mostly me. But the other one … uh, Luisa … she’s sort of telling me things. Or things are leaking through from her to me, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to remember them.”

“So you think we should go back to the house?” Rose had already experienced one night outside in Lizhbau’s cold weather. She didn’t want to risk another, and it was already dark. She shivered and moved closer to one brick alley wall in a fruitless attempt stay out of the omnipresent wind. 

“No, we should go to her place; Luisa’s.”

“But —"  
“She didn’t live with her father and aunt. She was married. Is married. To Salvha Adao.”

“‘Vella?” Rose ventured. 

Filomena nodded. “And she’s really sure that we should go back to the house they had together.”

Rose didn’t like the idea of running into the hatchet faced stranger who had so viciously rejected her companion, but she couldn’t think of anyplace else to go. At the very least, they needed to catch their respective breaths again, before she tried to figure out a way to catch up with the TARDIS. “What do you think?” she asked again.

Indirect light from a stuttering street lamp beyond the alley turned Filomena’s skin even more sallow and ashen than it really was. “I can’t think, really. It’s getting so hard …”

Rose held her breath.

“ … but we might as well go there. He might not be there, and I can’t go on much longer.”

_That settles it then._ “Do you know the way?”

“I think I know how to get there even if she can’t tell me,” Filomena said heavily. “I know that area pretty well myself. Cidad’o Biche. But go softly. They don’t call it Rat Town for nothing.”

Before she’d met the Doctor, that kind of neighborhood nickname might have made her roll her eyes. Now Rose wondered if she should be on the lookout for real, large rats.

“Not real rats,” the other woman said, as if she’d read Rose’s thoughts ( _and let’s not go there_ ). “Not more than usual for poor neighborhoods, anyhow. But the place is crawling with informants and Maldads and government people. Don’t know if her man is one of them.”

“I don’t think so,” Rose responded dubiously, thinking about the attack on the transport. “Look, if you think you know how to get there, let me help you up and we’ll get started, yeah?”

Filomena slowly got up from her knees, leaning heavily on Rose. They shuffled out into the street, and Rose was relieved to see neither tourists nor Maldads. Now all she could hope for was as short a trek as possible to a place where she truly hoped not to be greeted by a potentially very violent little man. 

*********************

_Jack must have been exhausted when he first came on board. Yet he actively resisted sleep, at first. He claimed not to need it, although it was painfully obvious that he did. He would prowl the halls of the TARDIS for hours — she didn’t stop to think about how she knew that, she just knew it — and when he would finally, reluctantly, head for the room he’d been told was his, he fell into slumber almost fearfully. Rose knew that, too, again without knowing how she knew it._

_She talked to the Doctor about Jack’s fear of sleep shortly after his arrival, wondering aloud what he must have gone through to have such a grey cast to his skin, so much weariness under all the charming words. She’d asked if it had anything to do with his missing memories, then wondered, a little diffidently, whether the Doctor might be able to help with that. The Doctor’s “Leave it, Rose. He’ll tell us when he decides it’s the right time.” had both chagrined her and, after some thought, made her more hopeful about Jack’s place with them. It had been good to know that the Time Lord thought Jack would be around for a while._

_She took her cue from the Doctor, and never asked Jack about his past. Over the next few weeks, or whatever passed for weeks in the TARDIS’ timeless interior, Jack became more comfortable. As he did, the circles under his eyes faded, and his energy seemed less desperate._

_“This place is good for me,” he’d said to the two of them in an unguarded moment._

_“Why’s that, then?” she’d teased._

_He hesitated briefly, a momentary look of bewilderment in his eyes. “I sleep better.”_

_She had started to ask him what he meant, but something — perhaps the memory of her own nights here — stopped her._

*******************

“You’re dead on your feet.”

“So are you.”

“So are we all.”

Jao and Nico turned their attention from each other to glare at Hilda. She said nothing more, just raised her eyebrows and jerked her head in Jack’s direction. He sat collapsed in the jump seat. Even the green-gold TARDIS light couldn’t disguise the bruises under his closed eyes. 

“What?” He opened those eyes reluctantly, feeling their combined gazes on him. 

“Can you fly this — ” Hilda hesitated. “Can you fly this ship?”

He frowned. “Not ship. TARDIS. I told you, She’s called the TARDIS. And, yes, I can. I think I can. If She lets me.” He closed his eyes again, and didn’t have the energy to mask his uncertainty; the bidasfeina had worn off a long time ago. 

Hilda shook her head. “No, I don’t think you can. Not as tired as you are.” He started to say something, but she held up a hand and went on firmly. “Don’t deny it. We’re all on short sleep but you are most definitely in worse shape than we are.”

“I suppose I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Jack said, trying for humor and barely reaching it. He was indeed tired, so much so that his eyes and lips were burning with fatigue. It was hard to put one thought in front of another. 

“No, that wouldn’t do at all,” Nico said. “We made a deal, and you’re going to have to stay alive long enough to keep your side of the bargain. If you must die, sleep beforehand.” He managed his attempt at levity a little more successfully than Jack had. 

“Hilda’s right. You’re exhausted, it’s plain to see. And the three of us aren’t much better. So; this TARDIS … does it have crew quarters? I don’t want to risk heading back to the safe house, much less the bar or … or where I live, without some sleep under our belts. I’m willing to sleep on the floor,” he continued, looking warily at the grill beneath him, “but a bed, even a hammock, would be preferable. ”

“Speak for yourself,” Jao said mutinously, but largely under his breath. Nico ignored him. 

Jack didn’t answer for a moment, as he tried to wrestle his mind back to efficiency. All he could muster initially was fear of how angry the Doctor would be when he found out Jack had let strangers into the TARDIS. _But that assumes the Doctor is going to be around. And he’s not, not until I can find him and rescue him._

“I think we can find some beds,” he finally said. “What about Salvha and his father-in-law?”

For answer, Nico pulled a mobile of some sort out of a trouser pocket, tapped some sort of text message out, then tucked it back into the pocket. “I’ve told Salvha not to expect us for a few hours.” Then he frowned slightly at Jack’s badly hidden surprise. “You saw the lab, and are astonished by this?”

“No, sorry. Just … hadn’t seen any of you use them before.” This was the first he’d seen of anything approaching modern communicators, not counting an old cradle-phone at the safe house and a public booth outside “Cheap Eats Here.” 

“We travel in land line neighborhoods,” Nico said by way of explanation. “My — the Governor has restricted the sale of mobiles. and their price is almost prohibitive. It’s easier to track land lines; legislation requires the communications companies to provide his administration with whatever tracking information they request.”

“Of course.” _Oh, all you brave new worlds, that have such old-fashioned and predictably paranoid tyrants in them. It wouldn’t be good form to remind him of what he probably already knows; his father’s people have undoubtedly unencrypted the mobile systems, too. Still, there’s only so much paranoia one can swallow and live with._ Jack said no more, simply gestured down the hall. The others followed him through one of the organically curving corridors, so tired that their wonder was well in check. The TARDIS showed them two simple but comfortable rooms. Nico and Hilda claimed one immediately, while Jao accepted the second. 

“Can we afford five hours?” Hilda asked, gazing longingly at the bed. 

“Make it three,” Nico corrected. “We need to get back to the safe house as soon as we’ve recharged a little.” Hilda groaned, but agreed. She and Jao headed for bed. 

As Jack started back down the corridor to the console room, Nico put a hand on his shoulder. He stopped and let the taller man turn him. His own passive response told him he was almost critically overdue for sleep. “What?”

Nico lowered his head slightly, looked at the floor then back up at Jack. “Your TARDIS … When I consider this place, I am not altogether sure that I am dealing with human beings,” he said, softly enough that the others didn’t hear him. Jack thought he saw banked excitement in the other man’s eyes, and perhaps a touch of fear.

“I’m most definitely human,” he replied, equally quietly.

“I know you are. But are your companions?”

A beat, and another. 

“Get some sleep,” Jack said. “Three hours.”

Nico’s mouth tightened, but he spoke no further, and followed Hilda into the bedroom. Jack was alone in the hall, listening to the thrum of the TARDIS. 

“Thank you,” he whispered to Her. His head muzzy with exhaustion, he wondered what She thought of his fumbling attempts at rescue. She’d helped him thus far — would Her cooperation continue?

The gentle surge of warmth he felt at the base of his neck ( _You can nudge my limbic system all you want, darlin’_ ) reassured him. “Wake me in three hours?” he whispered, then staggered off to sleep.

**********************  
Rose had no idea how long it took for them to reach a narrow side street, where the faded houses seemed to lean against each other for support, although it was still dark and the streets still blessedly empty. But she was grateful when Filomena pointed at one and whispered “That one. There should be a key tucked under that delivery box. I — she — always leaves one there. They used to fight about it.” 

Rose tightened her grip around Filomena’s shoulders, looked around one more time to see if anyone was in sight, and headed over to the house. She saw no light seeping from the one downstairs window, nor any from the two on the upper storey. Did that mean no one was home, or that everyone was asleep?   
She didn’t care. “Where was the key supposed to be?”

She found it. It was very easy to open the front door, but less easy to see inside. “Filomena, I’ll take the lead, but be as quiet as possible.”

“Did you think I was going to be anything else,” Filomena muttered back.

They inched themselves into the house. Rose gingerly closed the door behind them, fearful that the click might alert someone to their presence. “How do you turn the lights on?” She still whispered.

“The light at the front’s broken. If the bill got paid, there should be a working switch a little farther up the hall, by the back parlour door,” Filomena said.

A minute of creeping in the near-total darkness, which included at least one instance of walking into furniture and noisily knocking some unseen knickknack to the floor, convinced Rose that no one was going to interrupt them. When they finally reached the end of the hall, she groped around and found the switch. 

Apparently someone had paid the utility bill, because the room brightened faintly. That wasn’t an improvement; it was a mess, dust and unidentified detritus on the floor, papers piled on mismatched end tables, partly covering plates of dried and mouldering food, books and spread sheets sliding untidily from stacks haphazardly abandoned on a sagging sofa. 

“Oh, ‘Vella.” 

That sounded like Luisa, from the changed tenor of her voice. Rose grimaced at the floor, then looked to her companion and saw the telltale signs that the dead woman’s consciousness was pushing to the top; increased trembling, a new sheen of sweat across Filomena’s face. “He can’t take care of himself … look at all of this, he couldn’t keep clean in a closet,” she continued, as if the two of them were simply chatting about boyfriend foibles over a cuppa. That ended when she started coughing, doubling over in an almost vain attempt to catch her breath. 

“Alright, sweetheart. Take it easy,” Rose said, craning her head to see further into the house.

“Gnnh … “ The grunt was painful. Her breathing was labored, and Rose heard the wheeze and rattle that once again reminded Rose of her Gran. The other woman sank to the floor, stretching out her legs and letting her arms fall to her side. She looked like an abandoned marionette.

Luisa surfacing probably wasn’t a surprise, given that they were sitting in her home. It had to be calling to her, Rose thought. When you’re in a place that’s yours, you feel more like yourself even if you’re not really there — Rose shook her head to stop that train of thought. Best just to accept whoever appeared, whoever talked to her, she decided. 

They truly were alone, Rose realized as the coughing fit brought no one into the foyer. “Here, use this,” she said, pulling off the ragged kerchief she’d kept on her head and handing it to the other woman to wipe her mouth. 

“ _Sangre._ ” Filomena said, looking at the kerchief after she used it, and startling Rose with the rapidity of her reappearance. “That’s not good.”

Rose looked and saw the blood. “No.” There didn’t seem to be anything else she could say. 

“Your friend, the one who’s a doctor — does he understand the brain?”

_Oh, if Jack was here, he’d have so many jokes to hand._ “Better‘n anyone I know.”

“That’s good. Maybe he can save us. Me.”

Maybe, Rose thought. Maybe you. Not her. But I’m sure as hell going to try to get him to save you. The two of them sat silent for the next few minutes, until Rose decided that she couldn’t stand sitting on the floor in a dusty parlour hall anymore. She had to get Filomena somewhere she could lay down. And, she realized with resignation, some place she could collapse as well. She was knackered. 

“Is there a place you and I can rest?”

“I can’t use the stairs,” the other woman said. “Not right now. But there’s a little room off the kitchen, there’s a day bed there.”

“Then let’s go.”

Rose didn’t mind having to share the sagging day bed in the cubby-room just off the unpleasantly garbage-strewn kitchen with Filomena. It was chilly in the house, as if it had been abandoned for a long time, so combining their body warmth was welcome, even though Rose felt guilty about benefitting from Filomena’s fever. 

“I’m sorry,” the other woman whispered as she settled in.

“For what?” Rose couldn’t tell who was talking.

“I don’t know. For being sick, for …”

“Don’t be sorry. Wasn’t your fault, was it? It was the man who did it to you, to both of you. Blame Inverno. We’ll make him pay, I promise.” Rose didn’t mind the blood thirsty imagery that popped into her head as she said that. She hugged Filomena gently.

But there was no response, at least not in words. Rose heard her bedmate softly crying, and had to force herself not to start crying in sympathy. Instead she stared at the ceiling, silent until the other woman fell into a fitful slumber. Rose tried to do the same, but couldn’t. There was too much to do. 

Her thoughts raced. What should their next move be? At this point, much as she was loath to admit it, she had to stop looking for Jack. She had to find her own way back to the Doctor. If Jack was gone ( _no!_ ), she’d have to rescue the Doctor by herself. 

And why shouldn’t she, she decided, furiously pushing back past the dread that had strangled her thoughts like vines ever since she watched the TARDIS disappear. Jack says I’m a quick study, and besides, I rescued the Doctor from the Nestene Consciousness, and that was without any time to plan, so I’ve got to be able to do better than that this time. But how?

The darkness held no easy answers, just the hard one that said she’d have to retrace her steps and head back to that nightmare of a prison. She chewed her lip in the darkness. The prison … first step was to find out how to get there. She needed to search for street maps, then, she thought; find a way in through the back way, maybe hide out near where the juggernauts left at night, try somehow, some way, to slip in as one of the transports rumbled out. No one would expect someone trying to break in, would they — and then she thought of what Filomena had said about being discovered. Would that have made Inverno order an increase in security?

Assume that, then, she thought to herself. Assume that they’ll have doubled their watches and just … just try to be even more careful when you slip in. Maybe she could use the sonic? She’d held onto it since their escape, but hadn’t done anything with it except make sure that the water cannon she’d been blasted with hadn’t fried it completely. 

Wait. This was Luisa’s home, and her husband had ( _almost_ ) successfully sprung her from a prison transport that Rose was reasonably certain was meant to be a secret. That meant her husband had to be more than a horrid little man; he had to be some sort of rebel, and a pretty bad-arse one, too, if the destruction of the juggernaut was any guide. So maybe there was something in this house that had things that rebels needed, like — her mind raced — a map? Maps of the route of the juggernaut transport!

The adrenaline rush of realization shot through her, and she was in the process of slipping out of bed to search through the house for the map she was certain was there under some pile of papers, when a wave of dizziness hit her hard enough to make her clutch at the side of the bed, certain she was about to be pitched off it. She thought she heard something, music perhaps, as she struggled to recapture her equilibrium without waking Filomena. 

And then, just like that, she was steady again, and so very sleepy that she barely controlled her fall back onto the lumpy mattress. 

The last thoughts she had before sleep claimed her were odd and scrambled; trying to count the hours she’d been asleep, thinking it could somehow help her figure out how long she’d been away from the TARDIS, half-coherent visions of the Doctor’s eyes, of Jack’s … so blue … TARDIS blue ….  
______________________________________________________________  
 _my little ones are/will be/have shut down/sleeping/will sleep/time to tell them/help him/now/then/now/now/listen, little ones/bend time/break rules/you love/you love/I love/My Doctor/My Doctor/I knit your then with your now/listen/hear me/save him/I connect/will connect/failed to connect/connected/you/Me/listen/save him/he burns/he is burning/he burned/he starts to burn/no, no, no/he burns/save him/here/find each other/this way/your help/time’s rules/I reject/I disobey/I rebel/I need your help/follow me to you/to him/My Doctor/your Doctor/our Doctor  
_

tbc


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which two people who think they shouldn't love the Doctor are connected by one who knows they must.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** the every patient **dr_whuh** , aka my Best Beloved, and read over by the excellent **a_phoenixdragon.**  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I might regret it, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They belong to the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement and take no coin.

Jack wasn’t sure where he was, but it was definitely somewhere in the TARDIS. He could feel the ship thrumming in his blood, and felt safer for it. But what was this place? Had he sleepwalked? Sometimes, rarely, he did that. He hated it, because he couldn’t control it, but perhaps it was his subconscious trying to search for his lost two years. At least he hadn’t awakened on a building ledge.

On the other hand, wherever “here” was ….

He looked around, and was immediately on his guard. The blue and silver light seemed to move of its own accord, creating shadows, then illuminating the space around him with a cool radiance. When he realized he couldn’t see walls, or the floor he felt underneath him, he understood that he had to be in one of those areas in the living ship that the Doctor had warned him against venturing into. There’s deep places in here, the Doctor had said, places even I don’t go, and no human is safe there. You see the walls start to disappear, you turn right around and head for safer ground, he’d told Rose and him one night. You too, Captain, he’d said. Your Time Agency training would actually make you more vulnerable to some of the things you’d find in there, not less. Jack hadn’t believed him then, only days after London. He’d just figured the Doctor didn’t want an Agency reject poking about sensitive areas of his ship. That made sense. He’d nodded and filed it away for later consideration.

So that had to be where he was, because it didn’t feel like any dream he’d ever had, nor did it feel like any of the many kinds of psy attack the Agency had prepared him for.

Now, though … the room, if that was what it was, shifted around him, although not in a way he could pinpoint with any of his six senses. That’s what convinced him. He’d managed to sleepwalk himself into real danger. He turned on his heel —

— she was there, and she was crying out.

“Rose!” He moved toward her, arms instinctively opening —

— No, wait, she wasn’t there.

He stepped back, unnerved by the realization that he’d almost walked through some sort of holographic image of Rose Tyler. It was shimmering like the not-walls around him, but she glowed in a different way, somehow golden. Equally hard to watch, though; it made his head ache to look at her face, although he continued to do so, because she seemed to be looking right at him, her brown eyes wide and surprised.

“Jack?”

Her lips kept moving, but his name was all he heard, distorted and almost unintelligible, before an immense blast of … of what … static? It had no sound but something resonated painfully through his skull and down his spine. It affected the Rose image, too. He thought she grimaced, he saw her clap her hands to her ears. She raised her eyes to his — oh lord, surely this was no image, this was her, he could see her fear even as he sensed her ferocious determination to ignore it and figure things out. He loved her ( _No!_ ) for that. He ached in sympathy; wherever she was, she was experiencing what he was, and was trying to figure it out, just as he was. She began to speak again.

It came to him as if through a rushing river, a waterfall of sound that seemed like hundreds of voices, all trying to keep him from hearing hers.

“ — you see me? ‘m I dreamin’ … now … maybe the silk … where are —” Another attack of the not-static.

He kept his voice soft, hoping to keep the susurrant interference to minimum, if it was some sort of feedback. “Where are you, Rose?”

She looked around herself, then back at him. “Where are you?”

He wasn’t sure if she was repeating what he had said or not. She kept her eyes on him now, and started — what, was she walking around him? The static rose, and he thought he heard wailing, panicked crying, threaded through by some … song?

The look of her, though! Hologram or not … the look of her! Not the beauty, he thought, both hidden and amplified by her horrible, wonderful makeup. She’d always be beautiful to him, but that wasn’t it. It was the look in her eyes, screaming fear and bloody-mindedness both. She was in trouble, of course she was, and she had no intention of giving up or giving in to whatever endangered her. He tried to see past her to wherever she was, but the damned sound-that-wasn’t-sound kept scrambling his thoughts — no, scrambling his senses. Still, it was worth it to see her, to know ( _what? To know what, boy? How can you know anything in this place?_ )

The reverberations of whatever was moving the walls and sending light and shadows chasing around him and through Rose’s image grew stronger. Pain lanced through his head, from the backs of his eyeballs through to the base of his neck.

“Jack.”

The pain almost prevented him from moving his head but he knew that voice, the single syllable of his own name rough with surprise and tension. He had to turn around.

He hadn’t thought to feel afraid during the last few minutes, not even as he’d suspected, then realized, that this wasn’t happening in real time or space; that something was sending or calling him somewhere for some reason. But now he saw the Doctor.

If Rose was shimmering gold, the Doctor was incandescence so unforgiving that Jack fell back before it, throwing his hands up to his face, shutting his eyes against the harsh, brassy light. He thought he heard Rose cry out, but he had no chance to check on her because —

“Jack, go. Go, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to get ... I didn’t mean to bring you—”

The Doctor’s voice again. Jack thought, grimacing, while the afterimage of the Time Lord’s body burned into his retinas. The soundless chaos had risen whenever Rose tried to speak, but it became a howling agony as the Doctor spoke. 

“Don’t say another word.” ( _Oh, that’s charming, Harkness, this is the man you’re trying to find._ ) He didn’t know what hurt more, the silent shriek that threatened to knock him to his knees, or what had been said. “Sorry … I meant that I can’t hear you. There’s too much static.” Better to pretend that he hadn’t been dismissed, because after all, that wasn’t the point of his efforts. The point of his efforts—

Jack went blank for a moment.

( _He wants me gone and I can’t stand the thought of being away from him._ ) The thought came to him fully formed and completely, ineluctably and intractably true, shutting out every other thought. He couldn’t hide from it anymore, not in this place with no shadows. It wasn’t gratitude, it wasn’t sexual attraction, it wasn’t wonder, or admiration, or anything else. It was all those things and everything else, and he hadn’t felt that way about anyone, not for a long, long time, and it hurt, god did it hurt, and that’s why he’d fled every single thing that threatened to turn into a relationship, because he could not stand the pain—

“Doctor?”

That was Rose, and now, yes, she was moving — no, here she was beside him, he realized, ( _stay here, please, stay_ ), facing the Doctor with him.

“How can we … we’ll save—” And now she was looking at _him_! 

The relief on her face at seeing him … if someone had handed him a ewer of cool water after days of thirst, that might have been as welcome. He was tied to her, now, too. Dear lord, he’d known it for too long. Little uneducated primitive, all social anxiety, full of emotional uncertainty, fierce rages and equally incandescent joys, her delitescent intelligence catching him by delighted surprise ( _more patronizing fool, you_ ) again and again. 

“Jack? You’re OK? Thank god; we’ll save him together, yeah?” 

Hope, wild and painful, caught his breath, held it in his lungs until he let it go, breathless and not sure whether to laugh or weep. “We will, sweetheart. We will.”  
______________________________________________________________

Where was the music coming from? Rose opened her eyes, then tensed. She was standing up, which was weird to begin with, and she was standing somewhere that she couldn’t immediately identify. which was probably dangerous.

The music resolved into a voice — at least she thought it was a voice. Or a bell, clear and crystalline, like —

( _Both, child_ )

“What?”

( _Look for him_ )

This was a dream, then, she decided, with the calm clarity of unreality. But it was a very important dream to pay attention to.

( _Good_ )

“Look for who?”

There was nothing for a moment, and then—

( _Both_ )

“Jack and the Doctor.” That seemed clear, she thought. “But Luisa—”

The bell-voice spiraled into jangling, dissonant discomfort. Rose winced, but kept her eyes open. “I can’t leave her.”

( _He burns_ )

Around her, the white and silver light began to coruscate, sparks of silver bursting into umber first, then red-gold, then the gold at the heart of the sun, and Rose knew she was standing in the middle of flames without being burned. The bell’s chime had become a clangour that deepened into the sonorous menace of some old church bell tolling a warning. Rose heard the alarum and cried out, “I’m listening!”

The bell continued to peal but softer now. As its multiple tones quieted, though, the flames grew, licking at her fruitlessly, but still frightening. Rose swallowed. ”You said … you said, ‘He burns.’ Jack?”

( _No_ )

She let out a breath, then swallowed again. “The Doctor.”

Nothing answered, but the bell tolled discordantly and eerily high chimes joined it in a cacophonous descant. Dread uncoiled in the pit of her stomach.

“What do you mean, he’s burning?”

With that, the noise of the bell became multiple klaxons and keening pipes, mad wailing that sounded like mothers calling for their children. It knifed into her head, white and red agony blossoming behind her eyes and in her ears. Rose cried out, and clapped her hands to her head, staggering in pain. “God—”

“Rose?”

It was like a cool hand to her head, that voice, a momentary break in the pain. She straightened and looked around her until she saw him.

“Jack?”

Seeing him made her heart leap. But oh, how tired he looked! Those beautiful eyes of his were circled, and she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so haggard. He was dressed in the same old RAF greatcoat he’d worn when they met him, and the rest of his clothing looked rumpled.

The light skewed. Jack’s figure split and scissored like the image on an old television screen. She thought she saw the greatcoat blink off him, then back on. Then it melted away in a streak and smudge of blue-grey, and the image of Jack — almost rolling in front of her — slowed, steadied and cleared. He was as he had been before, but now he had a cut on his face.

For the first time, Rose felt frightened. It wasn’t that it was a dream; when everything had been clear and sharp, she was happy to be inside of whatever it was. But when Jack started melting and skewing, the memory of what she’d experienced since coming to Lizhbau kicked in. She remembered the silk and for a horrid while, she thought she was somehow still in its clutches. It had been hours and hours, but perhaps it lasted a long time. There were drugs like that, she thought, and maybe silk was still coursing through her veins. Maybe it was all a lie—

But it _had_ been clear and sharp, she persisted, with increasing certainty. ( _Go with your gut, Tyler_ ) This wasn’t some drug. And it was Jack ( _Oh Jack!_ ) She shook her head to clear it and focused on the man in front of her. “Can you see me? I thought it was the silk, but I don’t think so now … where are you?”

He looked so young, she thought, and so surprised to see her. That’s how she knew it was something other than a drug hallucination. But could he hear her?

“Where are you?”

She wasn’t sure if he was repeating what she said, or if he’d actually heard her, but she answered anyway. “The Doctor an’ I were drugged and taken to a prison. I got out, but he’s still there. We’ve got to save him, Jack!”

She walked toward him, then flinched as she realized she had just walked through his image. He flinched at almost the same moment, and she thought she’d hurt him somehow.

“Rose.”

She turned slowly, certain that she wouldn’t see him, but there he was. The space around her shivered and hummed with whispers, and the music circled and circled, with a banshee howl snaking over the bells and chimes, and the beauty of the song. It cut into her head and she wanted it to stop, but feared it stopping.

He looked like death. Like real death, she thought distractedly, not questioning how she knew death’s look, and now the fear was back, darker and more sick because if this was real, then he was real, and he looked like he was dying and that was worse than some stupid drug in her bloodstream. There was a darkness around him, and his skin was sallow, bereft of light—

( _Yet he burns_ )

“Doctor.” She wanted his image to fade and skew, like Jack’s, because maybe that would make the way he looked be just her imagination. But it wasn’t her imagination, and whoever was speaking to her needed her to listen, to save him somehow—

“Rose, you’ve got to go.”

“What?”

He continued on, ignoring her, like he did so often.

“You have to go. I’m sorry, so sorry I brought you …” She couldn’t hear the next few words, but she knew he was talking, because his lips were moving. His voice came back, tinny, like an old radio. “Get back to Jack. Save him and yourself. Go home. I didn’t mean to—”

The static roared, and she cried, in pain and in angry denial of what he’d said. ( _Not after all this, you beautiful bastard!_ ) 

Even as she started to recoil mentally from the anger that that made her lash out at him that way, she felt soundless agreement from the inchoate awareness that surrounded her. 

( _No/He is/He is ours_ )

There was the still, crystal clarity of dream time again. 

“Yours, too?” She didn’t have any idea who she was talking to, but it was important to keep talking.

( _Yes/Help_ )

As if she had any intention of doing something else. 

Rose looked about herself in the not-world, and felt the loving dismissal of the Doctor’s half-heard words. She felt old, far older than she was; far older than anyone ever seemed to think she could be. Rose, you’re too young, they’d all said to her; first her Mum, then her friends, Jimmy and Mickey, then the Doctor. In words or suggestions, or the look in their eyes, or the things they never said to her, or the decisions they made for her, it was always Rose, you’re too young. You can’t. Leave be. Let others. 

Not this time.

She had to rescue him, for his sake and hers. His half-heard directive didn’t matter. In fact, the more she thought about it, the angrier she became.

Leaving him just because he wanted her to, that was a non-starter right there, wasn’t it? What the hell kind of friend did he think she was, to go off and leave him defenseless? Sure she was a stupid little human — but she’d proved over and over with him that she wouldn’t run away. She didn’t run from something she didn’t understand. Hadn’t he taught her to try to understand? He’d told her to learn, and that’s what she did these days, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that how they got through the tight spots, the dangers? They’d figure things out, they’d ask questions, they’d get answers. They did it together, and they’d handled it that way so far, hadn’t they? 

She wouldn’t leave him, not again and not ever. And if he was burning ( _oh god no_ ) then he needed her even more. She’d save him and she would, too young and too human be damned, tell him that she loved him. 

( _Good/Good child_ )

“I’m no child.” That was important to say.

A feeling all around her, some vague regret or pulling back, as if something understood, just a little.

( _Old enough/You will be/It will hurt_ )

“Can’t hurt worse than not tellin’ him, yeah?”

( _It will hurt worse than you imagine_ )

“I know that,” she said. “I know.” It was frightening and exhilarating, and she wanted to run away, oh how she wanted to do that, but she didn’t. She thought she might never run away from anything again. The dread sliding and coiling in her stomach also felt like something … something better. 

( _The other_ )

Jack! Her eyes widened. How could she have forgotten?

Rose turned slightly, and saw Jack, standing just beyond the Doctor, facing the two of them with that lost look she’d seen him hide before. Then he saw her looking at him, and the look of relief in his eyes elated her, jolting loose the other truth she’d refused while waking.

Oh. 

She needed him, too, didn’t she? Not the only man who’d ever played her, not by a long shot. Just the only one who’d apologized. The only one who listened to her whenever she talked. Who looked her in the eye and talked with her, the real her, not a little girl. Who was as ( _I can’t be, I’m just fine aren’t I?_ ) lonely as she was, as lost as she used to be. Who understood, and who needed someone to understand him.

It was a good thing this was a dream, Rose thought desperately. In dreams you can love two men, right? The sliding and coiling in her stomach grew warm and moved places she thought should make her feel bad for feeling them. Instead, it felt right, like places that had been short-circuited inside her suddenly had connections; her heart, her brain, her body— 

( _It will hurt/You are strong/Wise/Face it now/I/We/Need/all of us/you/him/Him/you/it will hurt/Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful/Save us_ )

It was pleading with her, whatever it was. 

And was that so wrong a thing to ask for? She examined the thought, the feelings in her body; she thought about Jack’s eyes, and the Doctor’s, about their hearts and what she needed to do to protect them.

The dream had to stop being a dream, didn’t it? It had to be real.

Almost an exhalation around her, one of relief. 

( _Yes_ )

Something had breathed out, and Rose breathed it in. She held it in her lungs and felt fire like gold spread through her body. Then she, too, breathed out. 

Time to go to work.

“Right, then. I’ll be the fire brigade,” Rose said. “But not all by myself. Jack … listen to me,” she said. “Where are you? I’ll come to you, yeah?”

She thought she saw the Doctor grimace in denial. She threw her hand up, not even noticing that as she did so, his image blurred slightly and receded. The Doctor was burning, and Jack was lost, and she had to save both of them. 

Just as she thought she had things under control, everything around her shifted and torqued. The klaxons and wailing sirens swelled again. So did the static, like knives in her ears. A deep bell tolled in the distance. 

“Jack!” She screamed it. “Where?”

Bless him, he understood! He nodded and said something. She couldn’t hear him, and he obviously realized that. The alarm was clear on his face. He shouted something again, and she strained to hear him. 

( _No/listen inside/see what he says/inside_ ) Whatever or whoever it was sounded, felt, as alarmed as she did, as Jack was. Rose closed her eyes and whispered, “Jack, just think. The place we’ll meet. Think it, what’s it look like, Jack?”

He stopped shouting. She saw his eyes dash right and left, then back to her. He blinked rapidly, then nodded and shut his eyes, long lashes against those dark circles.

Safe. 

House.

Cheap. 

Eats. 

Here. 

The words came into her head as if she’d thought them herself, but she knew they were Jack’s. She closed her eyes to get closer to understanding. Glimpses of a seedy bar and a dark, rickety house, like Pau’s, only worse. She felt jolts to her muscles, and quick sightings of dark streets and she felt as if she were walking — no running — from one image to another. Safe house. She saw faces. Faces she didn’t know. 

No! One she recognized— 

“Safe house,” she whispered again.

“Yes.” His voice was back, and in her ear, warm and triumphant. “That face, look for that face—” 

( _Yes/now/wake_ )  
_________________________________________

Jack woke up, with a shout of delight. “Safe house!”

The others came running.

“What?” 

“We have to go back to the safe house!”  
__________________________________________

Rose opened her eyes. She looked up at the ceiling, then turned on her side on the old cot, and found Filomena gazing at her with poorly disguised suspicion. 

“You said, ‘safe house,’” she said without preamble. “And you called out two names.”

“Jack,” Rose offered. Filomena nodded. 

“The Doctor?”

The other woman shook her head. “You said ‘Salvha.’ That’s her man, the one she keeps calling ‘Vella. Why did you call his name?”

“ I don’t—” she began, wondering how to explain what she didn’t understand herself. Rose wasn’t willing to think too hard about it. ( _Just push through, Tyler._ ) “I don’t know how or why I know. But we have to find him. And a safe house.” She scrambled up past Filomena, stumbling to find the light in the little back room. “Maps. I need to find maps …”  
___________________________________________

Renhald Inverno wanted to be irritated with his technician’s panic, but he felt the tiniest brush of unease himself. Was this … creature … going to explode? He couldn’t bear the thought of the lab being damaged.

Nor, however, could he bear the thought of losing the alien. It was admittedly unnerving. But equally fascinating … he checked the temperature gauges. No real increase in temperature in the room. He risked stepping over and touching its skin. Indeed, there was no heat to speak of around the alien's body, and yet the skin was hot and dry and — moving? Infinitesimal movements one could almost mistake for shivering, but … not quite. 

Inverno thought quickly. 

“Move the gurney to the morgue,” he said as calmly as possible. 

“Is it dead?” The technician hadn’t moved from the far side of the laboratory. 

“No, but it might be soon, if we don’t do something to slow its metabolism,” he said, restraining his irritation. This tech was normally intelligent. He wouldn’t want to have to replace him. 

The man nodded, shakily to be sure. “I’ll get —"

“No one. We’ll do it,” Inverno said, moving to help. “Put on your gloves; you don’t want to touch the silk.” Now it was the tech’s turn to look irritated. No one in Inverno’s employ was ignorant of silk protocols. Inverno didn’t notice, and continued, “Once we’ve slabbed it, I want you to drop the internal temperature in that drawer to twice the normal holding temperature.”

The two of them moved to take the xenomorph’s body somewhere colder and safer. 

_tbc_


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose begins to say goodbye to one person and finally says hello to another.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** My flexibly perfectionist, always awesome Best Beloved **dr_whuh** ; also read by the irreplaceable **a_phoenixdragon**  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They belong solely to the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement and take no coin. I do, however, love them and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.nt and take no coin. I do, however, love them and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.  
>  **Addendum:** For those who care: in First Empire neo-Portuguese, "Senhra’da Luz" is roughly translated as Lady of the Light, a more respectful version of Sera Lumina. "Quemosangre" can be very roughly translated as "whose blood", another idiomatic non-obscene near-oath, substituted for "God's blood" (sort of like "heck" for "hell")

“If you can believe in the TARDIS, you can believe what I’m telling you now.” Jack kept his voice level. Nico and Hilda were doing him the courtesy of listening, and they were the ones he had to convince. “Telepathy’s nothing new—”

Nico’s face screwed up, as if he’d tasted something unpleasant. “But you never told us you dealt in it. You never suggested to us that you and your friends could so easily communicate.”

“We can’t. I mean, we couldn’t,” Jack agreed. “But something — someone — contacted me while I was asleep.” He stopped and shook his head. “Not something. Someone. I know it was Rose.” He fell silent. 

“You understand our wariness?” Hilda asked.

“It’s not silk,” Jack said, shaking his head for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I told you what the Doctor thinks about the stuff.”

“And your Doctor? This burning man?” Nico was sitting on the jump seat, his feet bare of the work boots he normally wore, his threadbare jacket thrown across a console room rail. His shirt was rumpled, the tail out, and yet he displayed more than a bit of the magnetism and command that made him a leader. If Jack had met him before ...

“I—” Jack stopped. 

He was less sure that he’d seen the Doctor. The flame and incandescent heat … it could mean anything. But Jack knew it didn’t matter. Rose was talking directly to him, and she had told him ( _Or did you tell her, Captain?_ ) that he had to get back to where Salvha and the old man were. Somehow, he was certain that Rose would find him there. And that would be ( _wonderful, life-saving_ ) crucial to getting the Doctor and fulfilling Jack’s part of the bargain. 

_Fulfilling bargains hasn’t been important to you in a long time, smart boy._ Jack ignored his own doubt. It was important now. 

“That’s the weirdest part of this,” he answered, being as honest as he could. “I know the Doctor’s in danger, and I know that Rose and I communicated. But what I saw of the Doctor … I don’t know if I was seeing what actually was happening to him, or not.” He desperately wished he’d had more sleep, because he needed all his wits about him, but at least he’d been energized by what he’d seen. If he used the energy to think, to convince his tenuous allies— 

“Nico, he’s telling the truth.”

Jack jerked slightly, then looked to Hilda. She was still exhausted, and she leaned over the rail as if she were a piece of discarded clothing. But she sounded certain, and a tad impatient with her commander. “And you know as well as I do that we have to get back. Salvha shouldn’t be left with the old man too long; he shouldn’t be left alone, period. He’s beginning to fall apart, and we need his skills. When we’re around, he’s fine. Do you want to go back to find the place empty, or worse, find the old man’s body on the sofa?

“I think we return, and fill the holes in our—” she eyed Jack, then Nico, with disbelief barely held in abeyance, “— our incredibly unplanned current strategy. Let’s get Salvha working on the tactics that will fill those holes in. When he’s working on something specific, he’s steady, and we’ll get things done more quickly.”

Nico glowered at her, then groaned and let his head fall back. “Why are you always right?” 

She managed a tired smile, then turned and fixed her gaze on Jack. “Can the TARDIS move us there?”

He thought, marginally aware that he was trying to communicate with the TARDIS. But he knew the answer when he got nothing back. 

“No. I’m pretty sure I can’t, not right now.”

Nico nodded, unsurprised. “Then let’s wake Jao, and get going. If, as you seem certain, your friend will find her way there—” 

“She will.” Jack couldn’t quite get his head around the idea that Rose had somehow run into Salvha. Abela Fort'leza had, what, something over 900,000 souls in it; not a metropolis, but the likelihood of such a coincidence still seemed vanishingly small. Then again, what were the odds of him running into the son of Lizhbau’s governor, leader of the resistance no less, when walking in to the first nondescript dive he picks out of a tour guide he found in the TARDIS?

_What indeed, smart boy?_ Jack’s eye’s widened momentarily as he examined the possibility of outside or inside influences. Then he blinked and deliberately put the thought away. He had more than enough to deal with right now. Rose somehow knew of Salvha, and she promised him she’d get to where he was. He was going to trust his ( _heart_ ) instinct that she would do so. After all, with the exception of those heart-stopping moments at the safe-house, trusting his instincts had been the right way to play it. 

“— then we’ll head out,” Nico finished. 

“I’ll get my coat,” Jack said.  
____________________________________________________

“Wait, _wait!_ ”

Rose was halfway back down the hall when Filomena shouted.   
“What?” She knew she had snarled that, and felt guilty, but she begrudged every second she couldn’t search this place and find something, anything, that would get her to Jack. 

Filomena followed her, holding on to the wall for balance. “If you’re looking for something in this place, you should—” she stopped, then grimaced and began again. “You should … should t-ta — _sangre_ — talk to her. She l-lives here.” 

Rose stopped, thunderstruck. Of course, Luisa! Then what Filomena had said registered. She turned slowly. “Filomena?”

“I m-mean it. Y-you talked about th-th-the— about her m-man.” Even in the murk of the dark hall, Rose could see the sweat on the other woman’s face. She tried not to think about what the new stutter meant, what part of her brain the silk was attacking now, and whether anything would remain long enough to be purged and healed of the poison. She thought instead about what Filomena had said. She was floored by the woman’s implied offer. “Are you alright with that?”

When Filomena made it to Rose’s side, the little woman looked grimly determined. “She’s f-fading. She’s still in there, b-but she won’t come out for me. I can f-feel her, but th-that’s all.” 

She surprised Rose even more, then, putting both hands out to grasp Rose’s own. “Rose, I don’t want this. But I’m fading too, she’s t-ta-taking me with her. Th-this—” 

One hand pulled loose; she brought it to her lips, then grabbed Rose’s fingers again. “This is t-telling me that I’m going to go wh-when she does. If she can get us to her ‘Vella, that gets us to your friend. And that gets us to y-y-your— ah _quemosangre!_ ”

Rose knew why Filomena was swearing; she’d be swearing too. She gripped the woman’s hands hard, partly to make her stop talking. “I understand. Y’don’t have to say anything more. Let’s go sit down. I don’t know if I can get her to come out, but I’ll try. And Filomena?” She swallowed hard against her own sorrow, against the desperation in her companion’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Filomena shook her head, irritably. “In a fight, y-you do what you have to.”

_When can we stop, though? When do you get to rest, or will you die if you do?_ Rose dismissed the thought, telling herself that there’d be time later. Later, there was always time for it later, when she’d found Jack, when they’d rescued the Doctor, when they’d — she grimaced, not willing to finish that thought, either. “Alright then, let’s get you comfortable, yeah?”

They went out to the disheveled parlour again, and Rose helped Filomena into one of the chairs. After folding in on herself for a moment, the other woman straightened up a little and fixed her eyes on Rose. “Can you b-bring her out quickly? It’s getting even harder t-to feel her inside.” The panic wasn’t buried any more. 

“Look, why don’t you just close your eyes for a bit, and … ehrm … just concentrate on breathing regularly,” Rose said. “The calmer you are, the easier it’ll be to do this.” 

“I’m as calm as I can be at the moment.” Filomena rolled her eyes, which might have been funny under other circumstances. “Do this right, Rose. I’m t-tr-trusting you.” Her lids drooped closed, and she began to take slow breaths, deep and even. Rose waited.

Eventually her companion spoke again. 

“Rose?” 

It wasn’t Filomena, and Rose breathed out shakily. She’d had no idea what it would take to get the fading dead girl to reappear. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

_Her face changes so much when Luisa comes out. You can tell she’s not a soldier._

In point of fact, for most of the time she had been with Rose, Luisa had barely seemed an adult woman, not in the way she spoke or acted. Rose had examined the holo of Sampaio and his daughter after Luisa dropped it, but she had found little to tell her what or who Luisa might have been when she actually lived. Despite the paucity of clues, however, it was clear that she had been more than what remained by Rose’s side. Her face, while gentle, had seemed bright and responsive, laughing at the unseen holographer and smiling at her father; a woman obviously far more mature than the childlike and easy frightened personality that remained. 

Whether that was a because of the mental and physical trauma the original Luisa had suffered ( _don’t think about it_ ) or a function of the drug eroding Filomena’s brain was far beyond Rose’s ability to figure out. But what was left … Rose felt her protective instincts surge, and fought down the anger she felt on Luisa’s and Filomena’s behalf …. 

“Are you alright?” 

Luisa’s question brought her around again. “Sorry, yeah, drifted off —” 

Rose wanted to bite her tongue the moment she said it, but to her surprise, the other girl laughed; faint and wheezing, but real. “It’s the p-popular thing these days.” The laugh transmuted into a cough, but when Luisa conquered it, she smiled again. 

"I know why you need me awake. I could hear what you were talking about. You don’t need any maps. I c-can take you to where I think ‘Vella will be.” She stopped smiling. “He won’t k-know who I am, though. And I’m glad.”

“Oh, no!” Rose protested automatically, but Luisa shook her head as firmly as she could. 

"I … I’m not here.” Her eyes filled with tears, but she wiped them away and persisted, with a very unchildlike grimness. "I f-f-feel real, but I- I-I —” She ground to a halt, then started again. “You heard what Filomena s-said. Y-you heard her story.” She confronted Rose with what she didn’t seem able to say. But with every passing moment, she seemed less the terrified waif Rose had found in the jail cell and more the woman Rose had glimpsed fleetingly in the holo. “My … my body is g-g-gone. And I’m not here.” 

She stopped again, blinking rapidly. “I feel like myself now, Rose. Like I did b-before they took me to — to where you f-found me. Found Filomena. 

“Before someone dies, someone who has been close to death, they sometimes come back. They feel like they used to. They have a chance to do things, say goodbye before they go. And I think that’s what the gracious _Senhra’da Luz_ is giving me.”

“You don’t have to think about that now, swee— Luisa.” She wanted hold her, to tell her everything was going to be alright. But it wasn’t going to be alright. 

"I k-know. But I c-can take you t-to the house I think ‘Vella may be in. He won’t k-know who I am, b-but you can tell him what hap-happened to me,” Luisa said. She struggled up from the chair, wheezing again with the effort. “He’ll need to know. And you c-can t-tell him I’m s-so-sorry for doubting him, for siding with Papa.” She turned heavily and made for the hall. “We have to go. Now.”

“Luisa?”

The other woman turned back; Rose held up one hand in apology, and pointed with the other. “You need your shoes.”

Luisa looked at her. “So do you.”

In the breathless moment before they started to laugh, Rose saw Luisa utterly alive and present. They giggled, then guffawed, leaning on each other for support, chests heaving. It felt clean and wonderful, and just a hair’s breadth from insanity. Luisa’s grip was strong, and Rose embraced her with just as much ferocity. The laughter subsided as they shuffled back up the hall to get their shoes, but only just. 

It wasn’t until they were putting the shoes on that Luisa dissolved into real tears. It was the sorrow of a grown woman, though, not the lost weeping of before. It was soft, deep and quiet, and she didn’t let it stop her from getting ready to move. 

“I don’t want to go,” she managed through the tears. “I’m trying to be brave, and I’m t-tr-trying not to think about it, that I’m already d-dead—” She stopped to cough, wiping the blood away with her fingers, then wiping her fingers on her shift. “D-do you have any idea of what’s real and what isn’t, Rose? I d-don’t. 

“I feel real, I k-know I’m Luisa Adao-Sampaio, but I’m not. And I want to stay s-so desperately, but I c-can’t remember what my favorite food was … I s-started losing it when I woke up this m-morning — c-can’t remember w-what I used to like to sing, or how I met ‘Vella, just that I l-love him, and I’m going away—”

She bit off her rush of words, and swallowed again. “Will this part of me join up w-with the rest of me, d-do you suppose?”

Rose didn’t hesitate. “Yes. You don’t have to worry, yeah? There’s — there’s something beyond this life. I know it. And you’re — you’re out there somewhere, and you … you’ll be bringing better memories when you … when you get there.” 

Now _she_ was incapable of holding back. “You’re having a better end now, right? This is you, y’know, just as much as you ever were. You’re the you who escaped from that hole. You beat him. You beat that bastard, and you walked out of his lab. And you’re go—” She stumbled. “—You’re going to see ‘Vella before you, before you go. You don’t have to say anything, but hang on until I tell him what you told me to tell him. Please?” She rubbed away the tears with the edge of her thumb, but she couldn’t say any more. _Heaven? Where the hell is heaven? Don’t care; there has to be a heaven, if only for Luisa’s sake. Mum, I wish you’d told me more about heaven._

They walked to the front door, their arms around the other’s waist. Luisa laid her head on Rose’s shoulder for a moment, then straightened. She pulled her hands free, dragged them through her hair. “Open the door, Rose.” 

They opened the door, and the sun shone in.   
____________________________________________________

In the end, it didn’t take all that long for Luisa to find the pinched clapboard house, unremarkable amongst its flat-roofed and weary brethren. That was good, because she was almost gone; her eyes slid constantly between feverish awareness and the glazed look Rose had first glimpsed behind the cage bars.

In some small mercy, it didn’t seem to matter to the other woman. She didn’t speak much, beyond giving Rose directions. It took perhaps 20 minutes to reach their goal and all during that time, she seemed to be at peace, a serenity that was reflected in their surroundings. Poor this area might be, but it was surprisingly clean; no detritus blowing along the pavement, no rubbish tips, and the windows in the old houses were uncracked and mostly clean. The sun was bright, and the wind was almost bearable. No one paid them any mind, and in another small mercy, there were no Maldads in sight. Rose didn’t question the signs of undoubtedly fleeting grace.

“This is it,” Luisa finally whispered. “Up the stairs behind that door.”

Just as Rose started to groan, with the idea of yet another set of stairs — every place in this city seemed to be built tall and narrow, as if in bad imitation of the mountains surrounding it — the door at the top of the steps banged open. A thickset older man held it wide, while peering up and down the street. A rangy woman with broad shoulders and a shock of thickly kinked roan hair dashed down the stairs followed by — 

“Jack!” She didn’t care who heard her.

And then he was there and she was in his arms and he in hers, and she was warm for the first time in what seemed like forever, and the smell of him, the _smell_ of him, sweat and almonds and him, and he was laughing brokenly in her ear, chanting her name, and she was crying and not caring, selfishly not caring, about anything or anyone else in the world, not for one precious endless moment, as she returned his chant with her own, telling him that she loved him, laughing and crying and making sense only to him, she knew he understood, as she understood his endearments—

“Captain, bring her in. Jao, help me with this one.” Over Jack’s shoulder, Rose saw the older woman struggle with Luisa, and turned her face to Jack’s. 

“Jack, she’s dyin’; it’s the silk. The Doctor —” She gasped, his name finally snapping her completely from her happy fugue state. “Oh my god, Jack, _he’s_ dying. He’s—”

“— burning. He’s burning. I know, love. I saw.” 

They stood there for a moment, the twisting, gut-deep fear warring with the wonder of knowing that they were together, that they had been together somewhere else. 

“Did we see him? Did he know we were there?”

Jack sighed out a shaky breath. “I’m not sure. I … don’t think so.”

Rose was disappointed when she realized that she agreed with him. 

“Who … who brought us together?” She thought she knew, but she wanted to hear what he had to say.

“You’ll think I’m crazy, but I think it —”

“Harkness!" It was the bald man, sounding both angry and nervous. “Inside!”

“Yeah, coming.” He didn’t loosen his grip on Rose, just moved so that they could walk together up the steps to the door. “Sweetheart, who’s the girl?”

To her horror, Rose started to laugh. “Girls.”

“What?”

And then she started to cry, but forced herself to stop. “Women. There are … she’s … never mind. In a minute. Give me a minute. I have a lot to tell you … but first, is there a man named Salvha here?”

He nodded, wordlessly aware that he’d been expecting the question. 

“Good. I have a message for him.”

_tbc_


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a necessary accomplice reaches a fork in the road, and the road now leads to our team as it rebuilds.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by** : My irreplaceable Best Beloved, **dr_whuh** , and given a necessary read through by the wonderful **a_phoenixdragon**.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, No Whoniverse characters are mine. They belong solely to the BBC and their respective creators. I do, however, love them, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

There were two ways to go from Fort’leza General Detention to Central Command. 

You could go out the front door of the prison that had once been one of Lizhbau’s main administrative and military connections to the Great and Bountiful Human Empire. You could climb into your well-polished military car and let the corporal assigned to drive you take you the short mile up the hill to General Command. 

That short mile would be accomplished by taking long roads that climbed via switchbacks through the increasingly vertical city, from the industrial neighborhood in which the prison squatted, through Rat Town’s warren and its ever-present squads of Maldads keeping the tenuous peace; past the leaning tenements and empty store fronts that once had been bustling neighborhoods of factory workers and immigrants from the country; up more presentable streets and retail lined avenues through the fiercely neat neighborhoods of the lower middle class and the shabby gentility of the downwardly mobile; across neighborhoods of new wealth — homes too big, ground cars too conspicuous — and continuing along between broader streets with pleasant homes, more and more of them behind walls of incrementally taller and thicker dimensions.

Just before the boulevard dead-ended into electronic gates and private security officers, with the oldest dwellings of the city barely visible behind the thick twisted trunks of olive trees and garden trellises, your car would turn left, drive over a small drawbridge into a brief tunnel that burrowed through Central Command’s own considerable walls. In all, it would take perhaps half an Earth standard hour.

Or you could take the second way. It would cut your journey time in half, and it was certainly more private, taking you, up through the basalt and granite heart of Gel’Colinas. If you didn’t mind navigating through a plethora of wide or confining halls, taking a lift or two, or climbing two or three winding staircases of variable width and ease of access, you could avoid the streets. 

In the old days, Central Command and what had once been Imperial Regional Headquarters had been umbilically connected. As they should have been, Isobel Fahrar thought while she headed to a little used postern on the first floor of the prison and used a keycard to open its door. The labyrinthine topography would have been confusing, yes, as you traveled through the mountain instead of over it, but it would have been direct in a deeper and better way. 

The Empire’s trust in every colony’s self-governance was very carefully delineated. Here on Lizhbau, that meant Imperial headquarters were separate from the Governor’s seat. Congress, communication — that was expected, just as loyalty to the Empire was. But every colony’s internal affairs were its own, so long as it bowed to the Emperor. And in the old days the connection had been a good one.

Fahrar imagined the walk she was taking now might have been quite different when Lizhbau’s governor had been Philipe Bohlver. It must have bustled in here, with all the city and provincial departments connected via halls and stairwells, tied to each other and to national departments by proximity and practicality, and then down and south to the Empire, connected by liaison’s offices, joint council rooms, old friendships. Would the walls have been decorated differently, she wondered, would there have been brighter colors and pictures to stave off the heavy reality of being under a million tons of rock? Would the air have hummed with half-heard voices, maybe people laughing as they chatted between tasks ….

She would have been at home then, back when there was a solid relationship between Lizhbau, a deserving outpost of the Empire, and that Empire, she thought, trying to ignore the increasing humidity that signalled the narrowing distance between the clean corridors of FCD’s upper levels and the current reality of its rotten engine.

The humidity was one small reason that people didn’t willingly take this route up Gel’Colinas in these days of Philipe’s son. Not the kind of people Isobel Farrar used to think she wanted to connect herself with. The kind of people she wasn’t good enough— 

“Shut up,” she muttered to her inner imp, the one who’d been roused from slumber by that damnable alien. She breathed in and out and closed her eyes, working to focus the anger she felt, trying to make it useful. She had to think about this— 

That was ridiculous, of course. She knew that if she actually stopped to think about what she was doing, her common sense would kick in. Meirelles was gone, good as dead, collateral damage that she needed to accept. 

And here she was, she thought, not accepting it. 

She was at a third sub-basement now, down in a grid of departments euphemistically labeled “Research and Development” or “Delivery” or, insolently, “Department of Agriculture.” Here at the base of the mountain, Fahrar had only the barest idea of how far these halls went, how many departments of agriculture and research and development laboratories she was being paid to ignore. 

She had one more basement to reach, and then the long corridor that would lead her back up to the main connection points in the under-mountain ways. The walls showed the glistening moisture of undried air. They kept it cool, so the moisture was uncomfortable — dank and damp, Fahrar thought — but it was necessary. Down here, the humidity helped damp the psychoactive out-gassings from silk production. Neither regular below-deck staffers nor anyone else coming down here would like what the inside of their heads felt like without the heavy humidity. She knew that. 

Just as she’d known about the increased sweeps of the city, had known full well that the military command structure was riddled with people not fit to wear the uniform — not just the washouts she’d been dealing with in the wake of Avhenna’s assassination, but all the way up to the comfortably carpeted chambers of the colonels and generals she’d once thought honorable. 

She’d heard the gossip and the stories about Inverno as well; only police and reporters gossiped more than soldiers. She’d heard how the general staff tried to keep on his good side. About how what he really did in his labs oozed closer to the surface of his self-proclaimed scientific research as his position with Bohlver became more and more secure. 

She’d known about it, and had chosen to put that knowledge away, filed under things she didn’t need to pay attention to because it was someone else’s job. Someone else’s job. 

The way was dark. Avhenna’s people had felt little need to keep every light socket filled. But she didn’t really need much light. She simply needed to follow the conversations shouted back and forth between the people who spent their shifts down here. 

They never comprehended how loud they were, Fahrar thought. Wearing the psychic dampeners that everyone simply referred to as ear plugs was a necessity if one was down here for more than an hour or so, even with the humidity helping, but wearing them made most people almost deaf and they overcompensated when they spoke. The dampeners threw out a subsonic signal that helped manage the distortions human minds were prey to while walking through rooms of silk bolts piled high, or shelf after shelf of silk infusion. 

The dampeners also blanketed the psychic calls of people who had been subject to silk. 

Fahrar pressed her lips together, but let that thought sit there and bite at her conscience. Then she let it stay a little bit longer. She hadn’t done that for quite some time, let her conscience up and out. It hurt, but being uncomfortable about it also felt better than she’d felt for that same long time.

She knew exactly where “supernumerary non-personnel” came from and why they ended up that way. No one who grew up in Abela Fort’leza was innocent of that knowledge. They, too, had been someone else’s job to her. Now someone she knew had become supernumerary; now at least some of this had become her responsibility, and she hated that. Or perhaps she hated herself for letting it become somebody else’s job — 

Fahrar shook her head. It was better to think about what she would say when she got to Inverno, how to word things to make her mission a success.

He knew why she had requested an emergency meeting, of course, but she had no reason to think he’d release Mireilles to her care (or as she’d put it in the telephone call, her parole.) 

“So why the hell am I doing this?” The hallway stretching before her had no answer. 

****************************************

“No, I’m afraid I can’t.”

Renhald Inverno actually sounded sorry. 

He sat in a very comfortable chair behind his very efficiently organized desk, and seemed very much in control of his surroundings. A part of Fahrar admired him for the organizational skills he had. She’d always treasured those abilities in herself. Today, seeing herself mirrored in Inverno’s well-ordered office made her skin crawl.

Inverno wasn’t, perhaps, as well ordered and in control as he wanted to look. Fahrar noticed that he was tapping a sheaf of papers on his desk. His eyes kept darting between her face and those papers, although he tried to make the motion as unobtrusive as possible. From where she sat, she could see that the top sheet looked like some sort of medical report. 

“Why not? Sir.” She had to remember who she was talking to. “I know she’s being held for assault—”

“She’s being held for murder, as you know very well.”

“Yes, sir. We went over this on the phone. But as you told me, my adjutant was attacked by the victim. She responded in self-defense. She’ll be charged with second degree murder at worst. And we can hold her for further questioning in FCD.”

“This took place in an Imperial research facility.” He interrupted her, “While it is, of course, military space, the Governor has made it clear that he places a great deal of importance—”

_Oh, indeed he does._ Fahrar edged forward a little in her chair, willing herself not to go across the table at this man. She’d thought about her next words carefully, and this seemed to be the best opening. “Sir, I know that I was sent to FCD to clear things up, to get things running smoothly after Avhenna’s—”

“Death.” He said it blandly. 

“—assassination.” She used the word deliberately. “Assassination, sir.”

His eyes narrowed, but she went on. “It was assassination, and we’ve — I’ve — been dealing with its repercussions for the past two weeks, again as you know.”

“You’ve been very efficient in doing so.” He nodded sharply in her direction. “Central Command sent the right person for the job.” 

That was probably Inverno’s honest praise. Thirty-six hours earlier, she might have been elated. She smiled thinly and continued. “Meirelles is part of the reason for that. When I was seconded to to FCD, I made sure she was with me; she was in for a promotion, although she didn’t know it, because I’d put through the papers. I had no intention of letting her leave my office.

“And yet she was recalled to Central Command, barely five days after we were both sent to the prison,” Fahrar said. “She wasn’t expecting it, nor was I. There was nothing in the order that explained why one lance corporal had to be recalled, although normally the bureaucrats are more than happy to explain, in triplicate.

“Do you know why?”

As soon as she said it, Fahrar knew she’d said the wrong thing. He looked annoyed. Worse, he looked suspicious.

“What?”

_You can’t go back,_ she thought. _Go forward._ “Do you know why she was brought back to General Command over my objection?” 

“Of course I don’t. That’s a personnel matter, and I have other things to do. Do you think I take an interest in one staff member’s comings or goings?”

As he said it, Inverno looked again at his pile of papers. Fahrar followed his gaze. This time, she caught the word ‘Xeno’ and realized he’d been tapping her own report on the Doctor. 

“I don’t know, sir,” Fahrar plunged on. “But I find it unusual and inexplicable, and in the current atmosphere of unrest, where the insurgents’ reach has extended directly into FCD, unusual and inexplicable are potential dangers. I want Mireilles back with me, yes; but I assure you that she will stand trial for murder. All I want is time to question her on how she got moved here. If there’s any potential connection to the troubles, I want to find it and neutralize it.” 

Of course everything she said was a complete fabrication, put together quickly in what she hoped might impress Inverno as a facsimile of military thinking. If he believed that she herself was only interested in questioning Mireilles to investigate the insurgency, he might be willing to parole Mireilles to her. Then, if she could get her adjutant back into her orbit, she could put together some sort of defense for her, could use stalling tactics inherent in military chain of command to keep her out of prison, or at least minimize the probability of a long sentence. 

She just had to get her out of Inverno’s hands. 

Fahrar forced herself to look directly at Inverno, to sit back, to keep from crossing her arms defensively. Her attitude had to tell him that she was in command of this situation, that she was not worried at all — 

“Sous-Tenante Fahrar, please do not attempt to play me.” He said it pleasantly enough. “If your purpose was truly just finding out what the person in question might know about insurgents, you’d be here with your own silk techs —” he paused, a faint look of disdain showing what he thought of any techs not under his own command. “ — and you’d be questioning her now. With my full acquiescence.

“What you want to do is keep her out of my hands. You’re afraid for her.” He tilted his head slightly as he said it and looked almost gently sad. “You’re fairly certain that she has become part of my research.”

Fahrar stared at him, unable to respond. Could he be that blatant now? Could he simply announce that he’d taken a member of the empire’s military and — inside her head, she fought her anger and the creeping fear — experimented on them? And what about her? Was she that transparent? Had she lost so much of her self discipline? 

He went on. “I can’t blame you for wanting to protect a valuable staff person. And I most definitely appreciate loyalty. I am not blind. But I’m not willing to waste your time, and I’m certainly not willing to waste mine.”

“Sir—”

Inverno held up a hand for silence. “I cannot provide you your adjutant.”

“Why?” Fahrar hated the plaintive tone in her voice. It sounded too much like all the people who came before her every day, supplicants seeking information about their loved ones.

He hesitated then looked at her and nodded slowly, as if he’d made some momentous decision. “She’s been tried and sentenced.”

She held as still as she could. “And?”

“She is part of my research now.” He was quite calm, staring intently at her, and she knew he was measuring her, assessing her response to what he was saying. “Or rather, she was.”

The blood pounded in her ears. “Cabo-lança Mireilles is dead?” She spoke very formally.

“Justice has been served; and research. She is gone,” Inverno said. 

Fahrar caught at the distinction like a dog on the hunt. She didn’t want him to see her grab at anything, weighed the risk of asking any more questions, and decided against doing so. She saw in Inverno’s eyes something that told her she had received just about all the honest mercy he would provide her. “I see. Sir, there are forms to be filled out; her family to be contacted—”

“My people will do whatever needs to be done,” he interrupted. “Please understand that your office need have no further dealings with the Mireilles case.”

She nodded once, sharply, unwillingly mirroring his earlier acknowledgement of her. _I have lost control. I have to regain my place in this conversation or I will lose complete control of myself and that can’t happen. Just remember what he said, how he said it. Remember that. That’s your mission._

“If there are any final,” her lips thinned, but she ploughed on, “final forms that I need to sign as her … her former superior, I’ll sign them at your convenience.”

He began tapping the xenomorph’s report; Fahrar glanced at it, then away. 

“I’ll have my office send you whatever is necessary, thank you,” he said. The legs of his chair scraped as he pushed backward and stood up. “This has been a —” He evidently thought better of finishing the pat phrase. He frowned, and tilted his head very slightly. Fahrar knew she was being assessed again. 

“ I assume that was all you were here for? Was there anything else?”

“No.”

“Then we’re done.” The gesture he made toward the door stopped just short of being an order to get out of his sight. This was finished for him.

_No. No. You cannot do this._ She thought wildly that she wasn’t sure whether she was talking to him, or to herself, but it boiled up nonetheless. From someplace she thought she’d burned out or buried a long time ago, the little girl who’d believed her father’s stories chose this moment to surface, to protest. “But it’s not—”

“It’s not what?” he snapped. “It’s not fair? You think it’s not right? Or good?”

Inverno came around the desk so quickly that Fahrar found herself reaching instinctively for the weapon she’d left back in her own office. His pale eyes were even more noticeable when the color in his normally pallid skin was so high. His head thrust toward her and she thought of something hunting for prey.

“I—”

He shook his head, not violently, but with finality. And he looked disappointed in her; angry, practically sorrowful.

“Tenante Fahrar, you are known as a supremely professional officer, and in the 10 days or so that I’ve dealt directly with you, that has been pleasantly confirmed,” he said. “I will tell you, therefore, that I’m surprised that your professionalism, your … practicality, could not extend to this issue. Your realism.”

He straightened, and moved his chin as he adjusted his lab smock so that its high collar covered the military jacket he probably wore as a matter of bureaucratic probity. 

“I’m sure you deal with this sort of situation daily; if not before you were seconded to your current post, certainly since then. You have undoubtedly told many people that you could not help them find their … loved ones.” Again, there was that distaste. “You are a career officer, are you not? You have every understanding of our situation here. You understand what I do. You understand our world. You know our economy, and the military’s role in maintaining the health of everything that I and my colleagues do. You have not had a problem prior to this; I’ve checked your record. You have not had a problem until now. And you know why. The situation has not changed. This world has not changed. It is simply that your own ox has been gored.” 

He sighed. “I had hoped for better. Still, I believe I can hope for better from you in future; you are an excellent officer.”

_I am an excellent officer. I am an excellent officer._ Fahrar couldn’t stop the repetition in her head, but she did successfully keep herself from breaking out in hysterical laughter by working out exactly how many minutes and seconds had passed since she had entered Inverno’s office, and exactly how many minutes had passed before he’d shown her the rot at her own core. What the alien had begun, Inverno had quite clinically completed.

_Remember what he said. She is gone._

_She is only gone._

Renhald Inverno walked to the door of his office, opened the door, and waved at her again. She got up, and left, without a salute, numb to the military niceties. She did not look back as she heard hurried footsteps coming from somewhere behind her, stopping in at the office she had just quit. She heard some underling speak, caught the words “something wrong” and “xeno,” and almost automatically added them to her cache of tactical information. 

The walk back under the mountain was very long. By the time she reached her office, she was reasonably sure she had herself under control.

*************************************************

Laowhra Sampaio’s glower was a pale imitation of itself. She was one step from breaking, panic plain to see in the way her eyes grazed everything in the room except her, in the sweat on her upper lip and showing in rings under her arms. Fahrar had no intention of making this any more difficult than it had to be. She nodded at the enlisted man who had brought the woman in, indicating that he could leave, which he was more than happy to do. Few of those here at the prison liked being around her any longer than they had to be. 

“Don’t worry. You haven’t been arrested,” she said, deliberately looking the tall woman in the eye. “You can walk out of here. Both of you.”

“Both?”

“You and your husband, Merritt Sampaio.”

The hope on Laowhra Sampaio’s face was a terrible thing to see, Fahrar thought. 

She continued. “He’s … injured. You’ll need to care for him, to help him return to himself, but he should recover. He may, at least. He was not — he _is_ not — a complete victim of the Memory Market.” She allowed herself a very small, quirked smile as she used the banned terminology, and wondered if her unwilling guest was going to hyperventilate herself into incoherence. 

Fahrar was immensely relieved to have extricated the man from basic holding. He’d only gotten one treatment, and should regain most of his memories. There had been some raised eyebrows down at holding, of course; some pointed questions about why someone who supposedly had been pumped dry of information and sent on for processing now had to be removed from this month’s tallies. When she’d made it seem like their mistake, like one more inefficiency that she was making careful note of, they were willing enough to release the shambling prisoner to her custody. He currently sat one floor below, confused, but grateful to be away from what he was still intelligent enough to know he wanted to be away from.

The question was how soon word of what she’d done would filter upward, and how quickly she could get her own plans in motion. If this woman was willing to do what Fahrar wanted her to do, and could do it quickly; if she actually knew anything of what her fool of a brother-in-law had been involved with, then — 

“What do you want from me?” The Sampaio woman wasn’t glowering now. She was gazing at the floor. “I gave you the man and the woman. You said it wasn’t enough.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Then what?” She still didn’t look up.

“Things have changed,” 

Fahrar had spent the last two hours in a mission-focused fever. Those around her didn’t question her orders; they’d long since learned that was a ticket to very unpleasant consequences. They became even more obliging, when she let slip that getting these particular tasks completed, and getting those specific files to her _right now,_ that wrapping up the purchase orders and getting the file closure overrides put into place yesterday, damnit, might be the key to moving That Bitch Fahrar Back Up the Hill. In fact, she was treated to more cooperation in 120 minutes than she’d clawed from them in the past week and a half. That netted another sour smile from her.

She was right, she’d thought after going through the files, and checking into areas that weren’t her business. She was definitely right, she thought not 10 minutes before Laowhra Sampaio had been less than politely shoved into her presence. Those files … oh, yes, the red flags were probably starting to make their way to people who she needed to avoid.

Reading them was painful, too. _Nicholas, you should have stayed dead._

She had refused to think about all that for years. She'd kept her eyes and thoughts averted even after Machado surfaced, and it was too easy to suss out who that was.. She had put it away as one of her failed military experiences. She had told herself that she could consider him a criminal case, a terrorist and nothing more. She’d made him somebody else’s business. But not anymore, it seemed. 

She knew this was following a trail of breadcrumbs to someone who would have no interest in helping her. She knew that she had no logical reason to believe that even if he did, he could. And she had not the slightest idea of what she thought might constitute “help.” But she was going to go with her gut, the way she’d stopped doing too quickly after she graduated Academy. 

_We’ll see. We’ll see._

“What?”’

Fahrar blinked. Had she said something aloud? Well, if not, she was definitely about to.

“You’re going to take me to Salvha Adao, because I know he’s your brother-in-law’s son-in-law, and he has safe houses. If you can’t get me to him, I’ll bring in your brother-in-law. And if you both insist you know nothing, I will put you to the silk, but I really don’t want to do that, even though I don’t expect you’ll believe me. I want —” 

She stopped. She’d swept her office twice for bugs, but still didn’t trust its security. She might be sending flags up, but so far they were slow and, with luck, not shooting too quickly up the electronic heights of Gel’Colinas. Thank all that might be holy that things were still in healthy disarray down here. Still, she needed to buy herself as much time as possible. _Caution from the crazy woman who’s lost her sense of self-preservation, then._

“— Salvha Adao. I want him. You can get me to him. Don’t worry. He’s not going to die, or land in prison. Nor will you. Nor will your brother in law. I assume that there are at least a handful of places that you know of, or at least suspect he frequents. So tell me, and start now.”

Laowhra’s mouth hung open only for a moment. It snapped shut, and she looked directly at Isobel Fahrar for the first time. “Where is Merritt?”

“Where is Adao?”

A long moment. “He’s with Pau At least, Pau left word that that's where he was going."

Fahrar nodded slightly. 

“And you can—”

“Yes. I mean, I think so. There’s a place, a bar.”

“There are a lot of bars.”

“I know the right one,” Laowhra insisted. Then her mouth twisted unwillingly. Fahrar kept silent. 

“There’s another place —”

"Good."

"Merritt?"

Fahrar knew this could go no further unless she provided payment. She'd prepared the release papers. "You can have these now; proof of my good faith. Look them over if you want to be sure they're real." 

She handed them to the other woman, who peered through them as if looking for hidden traps.

"You'll take me to where I want to go. You point it out, but you don't come in with me. You come right back here. Those papers are good only for the next two hours, no longer ( _if they hold water that long_ ). Take your man and get out and there's an end to it." She made sure her meaning was clear; no questions or the deal was off.

"As you say," Sampaio managed. 

"Then we go. Now"

**************************************************

Rose had just come out of the tiny bedroom where they’d put Filomena, and was once more making a beeline to Jack as he rested on the threadbare couch. Salvha had just lifted the dirty blind on the front window a millimeter to check the street below.

_“Sangre.”_

“What?” Nico came in from the back hall, drying his hands on a kitchen towel. 

“Laowhra Sampaio’s down there.”

Pau Sampaio, sitting on a rickety chair in the far corner and busy writing on a tiny pad of paper balanced on his knee, looked up, shocked. 

There was a knock at the door. 

 

_tbc_


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the major players are in place for the last few scenes in the final act.   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They belong solely to the BBC and their respective creators. I do, however, love them, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox

“And this is, is — right now she’s Luisa,” Rose said, determined to explain her companion’s situation as matter-of-factly as the Doctor might have. If she did, people might accept the situation the way people accepted impossibilities after the Doctor announced them. 

“Right now.” The older woman, Hilda, looked kind enough as she repeated that. 

“Yeah. It sounds weird, ( _it’s awful, but we’ll get to that_ ) but it isn’t. Or rather, it’s something I can explain. It something we can explain, me and Luisa.” She turned to check on the girl, and was immediately concerned. “Luisa, are you alright?”

“W-Who?” The girl was barely conscious, hardly opening her eyes when she heard her name.

“Luisa,” Rose said firmly, hoping there hadn’t been another switch on the way up the stairs. It was Luisa who’d gotten them there, and she needed to see her ‘Vella before she disappeared. _And I can say it now, we both know._

Rose didn’t think that Luisa, or at least that part of Luisa who lived on for the moment in Filomena, was going to be leaving this house. Rose was actually afraid for Filomena as well. The trip from Luisa’s home to this place — even dingier than her own, albeit cleaner and neater — had used up the febrile energy she’d exhibited before the journey. They had had to carry her up the stairs. Once they’d helped her to the sofa she had simply shut down.

“Oh, right. ‘M Luisa. ‘M n-not gone yet. But s-s-soon, Rose. P-please—” Luisa whispered, and Rose understood.

She turned to Hilda again, realized that the three of them were the only ones in the room right now, and was grateful. Jack hadn’t wanted to be separated from her, but had followed the short bald man and the tall, rather commanding one up the hall to somewhere, after the tall one jerked his head to the rear of the house. Rose felt his absence even more now that she’d been able to put her arms around him, but it did give her a chance to talk to the person who’d seemed most approachable in the crew she’d found Jack with.

“The man named Salvha; Jack said he was here, and I need to talk to him,” she said.

“Why? How do you know Salvha,” Hilda asked.

“I don’t. But she does,” Rose explained, gesturing toward Luisa. “Except, he’s not … he won’t recognise her, and I’m going to have to explain why.”

Hilda frowned slightly, and her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you start by explaining to me.” When Rose hesitated, Hilda continued. “Jack told us when we first met that you’d been taken by the authorities. From what he told us of his … of his dream, his telepathic connection to you—” 

“The one that led me here." 

Hilda nodded. “From that, it was clear you’d been treated with a silk infusion. This woman—” and she nodded toward the shivering figure on the sofa, “— looks as if she is suffering from some sort of silk reaction as well. Whatever you explain is probably nothing I’d be too surprised by. 

“Yeah, I’ve learned more about that stuff than I ever wanted to.” Rose said flatly. “And you’re right. This has to do with silk. A man named Inverno—” She stopped, as Hilda visibly stiffened. “Filomena said he was some top aide to the governor, some sort of mad scientist.” 

“Filomena?” 

Rose grimaced. “That’s her, too. A different personality. She’s the … she’s the, the real one.” 

Hilda huffed out a short breath and ran both hands through her hair, then cricked her neck. She looked very tired. “Sit down, Sera Tyler—” 

“Rose. Just Rose.” 

“Rose, then. Please, sit. I need to hear this.” 

“Why?” 

Hilda shrugged, her mouth a twist. “I have … worked with silk. I’m a researcher.” 

“Huh.” 

“Not with the government, I assure you,” Hilda said. “If that would bother you.” 

Rose nodded slightly, her own mouth pursed. “It definitely would, yeah. But if you know something about silk—” She hesitated and looked at Filomena’s shivering form. “Maybe between you and the Doctor, we can save one of them. Alright, I’ll tell you what Filomena told me.” She looked around, and then decided to sit on the floor, next to where the other girl lay. As she spoke, she felt each one of her companions’ labored breaths on the back of her neck. “This girl, the one whose body you’re lookin’ at, her name is Filomena Mireilles.” 

Rose was getting herself comfortable on the floor and didn’t see how Hilda started at the name. “She’s a … she was a soldier in this world’s army. But she hated the silk trade, so she got involved with rebels. She didn’t tell me much about them, or what they’re doin’, but she said she’d been on a mission to get into where the silk is produced.” 

“Go on.” Hilda had regained her composure, but was extremely pale. 

“Well, she was caught. Or rather, she, erhm, she got in a fight with another soldier in the research department where she’d been transferred, and she, she killed the soldier. And Inverno decided that he was going to —” Rose swallowed. “He decided to use her. In his research.” 

“What did he do? Did she know?” Hilda’s curiosity reminded Rose of the Doctor’s, but her voice also held an edge that Rose recognized as fear held in check. She shook her head slightly. 

“He had another girl. Another woman, I mean, in the lab. Filomena thought she was dead. Her face was covered with the blue silk cloth. Filomena was injected with it, like I was, but probably more. An’ he made some sort of transplant. Like a, a … a personality transplant. He’d scanned that other girl’s brain — did it with the silk, I’m guessin’ — and somehow ….” 

Rose stopped and looked around the room, trying to anchor herself and her thoughts, trying to put a logical sequence to what must have happened. “When I found her, she was in a cage. There were others there, maybe all of them people that he’d experimented on. They were the rejects. So he must have thought something went wrong with the experiment. He’d tried — Filomena said he told her he was going to make her a whole new person — to transplant the one person’s personality, or whatever you’d call it, into Filomena. But she must’ve fought back or something. Anyway, she ended up in that room, in the cage. 

“But when I found her, it was the other girl who I talked to. So the experiment must’ve worked. He just didn’t know it. Or he knew that it worked, but not the way he wanted it to, and … that doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is that it’s killin’ them both, both personalities in one body. It’s burnin’ out her brain.” 

“ _Sangre_ ,” Hilda breathed. “That man. We’d heard of his … his interests, but this? _Filhote d’um bruzsha._ ” She looked disgusted. “You’re right. If she was subjected to as much silk as I think she was, infusions, tactile, the works, then … _Sera Lumina_ , the fact that she’s — they — are able to function at all is amazing.” 

Her lips thinned for a moment as she looked at Filomena, then back at Rose. She opened her mouth, closed it, then did something that couldn’t decide whether it was a smile or a frown. “But you’ve presented us with something so amazing … Do you believe in luck, Sera Tyler — Rose?” 

_Good, bad, worse, oh yes_ , Rose thought. “ I do. Why?” 

“You said she knew Salvha, but Salvha wouldn’t know her. I assume that’s because this personality that calls itself Luisa is a print, from his wife.” Hilda said it softly, very calm. Rose could hear something of the teacher in the way she spoke. “Am I correct?” 

“Yeah.” Rose didn’t like saying it, because it felt wrong, and she didn’t like Hilda for calling Luisa an it. “You call it a print. It’s not a print. She was there. Luisa was real. Just as real as you and me. She wasn’t like a robot or anything, she had memories, and she made decisions, and she was — she was real.” 

“I mean no disrespect to the girl,” Hilda said, still soft and very sad. “ I knew her. I knew the original Luisa.” 

“Oh.” It felt somehow grotesque to talk to someone who remembered the tall brown-haired girl who was gone. 

“I knew her slightly,” Hilda continued. “This is going to break their hearts … Salvha and her father.” 

“The bookmonger?" 

“Yes, he’s here, too.” 

Rose made a sound halfway between a sob and a snarl. 

“It will be very difficult,” the older woman repeated heavily, nodding her understanding. Then, to Rose’s surprise, Hilda’s dark expression lightened slightly. “But I asked whether you believed in luck. I did that because I recognize the name of the woman, the other woman. The base personality. You said her name is Filomena Mireilles?” 

“Yeah.” Rose felt abruptly wary. “Why d’you know her? How?” 

“She was a rebel, you said. And she was working to get information about the silk laboratories to other rebels.” Hilda stopped and looked Rose over. 

Rose wasn’t sure what she was being inspected for and she had no more patience for mysteries. “What?” It came out far more sharply than she’d meant it to. 

“She was working with us. She didn’t know our names, but we were the people she went to Inverno’s laboratory for.” 

For a moment, Rose thought the other woman was speaking gibberish. It took her two or three seconds to process. When it finally sank in, all she could do was shake her head. 

“You have got to be kidding me.” 

“No.” 

“Things like that don’t happen. I mean, that’s the kind of —” She stopped. She’d already dealt with circumstance and coincidence that shouldn’t happen, didn’t happen, and it had happened on this planet more than once. 

Almost constantly, she thought, and felt something hum at the back of her skull. For the briefest of moments, almost no time at all, she tried to reach toward whatever was humming and ( _no, not yet, little one_ ) then turned aside from seeking. There was time enough ( _always time_ ) for that later. Right now, if circumstance and coincidence was part of the picture, she had simply to decide whether or not she could profit from it. 

“Never mind. I believe you. I’ve believed impossible things before,” Rose said. She looked thoughtfully at Filomena, then back at Hilda. “But what does it mean for you, or for her? Do you think she can still help you?” She didn’t blink at her own coolly analytic thought, as nasty as it sounded spoken aloud. 

Hilda matched her tone. “ I don’t know. I don’t know whether we can trust what she gives us, because we don’t know what Inverno learned from her, or what he might have done to her. 

“But I think we have to make a leap of faith here.” 

“In what way?” 

Rose's head snapped up and Hilda jumped at Nico’s question. Neither of them had noticed movement from down the hall, which left them briefly speechless as he, Jack and Jao returned to the front room. Jack was carrying a tray with cups of steaming bidasfeina, and some crumbly biscuits; the other two looked grim. 

Hilda recovered quickly and with a quick look at Rose, answered. “Jao, the girl on the couch is Mireilles. She’s been worked over by Inverno. He used silk on her, and he —” She stumbled. “— It looks as if those reports from Peixhoto were on the money. He did it; managed it. He printed her with someone else’s personality.” 

Jao’s jaw dropped, and he edged past Nico and Jack to get a closer look at the girl on the couch. “Wha— _sangr’o senh’ra_. She looks dead.” 

“She’s not. Not yet,” Rose said, looking up at Jack and aware that she sounded as if she was pleading for Filomena’s life. “But having two personalities in her brain is burning it up. We need the Doctor." _As if this girl was the only reason we need him_ , she thought. 

“Who? Who else is she?” Nico’s question was aimed directly at her. 

_Just step into it, Tyler_. “She’s Luisa. Luisa Adao.” 

For the first time in her brief encounter with Nico Machado, she saw him lose his composure. “No.” He took a step toward the couch, where Jao had grunted in outrage and was now crouched next to Rose, looking at the woman behind her. Then he thought better of it and stepped back. “Ser Capitao?” 

“Don’t look at me. This is all new, and extremely unsettling,” Jack said. He put down the tray on the low table. “One more reason to get to the Doctor; things like this are definitely in his bailiwick. Rose — what’s up?” 

“Like I said. She’s Luisa,” Rose said, getting to her feet. Time was slipping past her, she had to keep her promise to Luisa, and she was tired of explaining things over and over. “But she’s dying. She’s fading. An’ she needs to talk to her, her husband before she goes. He has to believe it’s her. Her father, too. She has to see her father. An’ then we have to save Filomena.” She stopped, aware of them staring at her, and she wanted to deflect their gazes. She tried to change the subject. “Hilda can fill you in. Is that coffee—?” 

Before she could grab a cup of the bidasfeina, the girl on the sofa started to seize again. “Quick, someone get those cups away from the sofa,” Rose said, not looking to see who obeyed her. She grabbed at another sofa cushion and slipped it behind Luisa’s head. 

As she did, she heard Hilda murmuring to Nico and the older man, Jao. She desperately hoped that that the three of them would deal with breaking the news to Luisa’s relatives. 

Jack knelt beside her, holding Luisa’s hands loosely to keep them from inadvertently hitting something, although the seizure was hardly that strong. “How long has she been like this?” 

“Pretty much since I found her in the jail,” Rose said, ruthlessly compressing the untidy reality. “Hilda says her husband’s here. And her father. The Doctor and I met her father. An’ I think we — Luisa an’ me — we met her husband. He … he helped us escape, but he didn’t realize it, and he didn’t recognize her.” 

Jack stared at her, even as he kept hold of Luisa’s hands. “What?” 

“Yeah, I know,” she said, grimacing. “Coincidences everywhere. I think you an’ I, an’ the Doctor, are going to have a long talk about coincidence and the TARDIS.” She stopped and shook her head slightly. “But that’s for later. Now, we’ve got to help her.” 

As she spoke, Luisa subsided again, but her breaths were now even more slow and shallow. 

From behind her, she heard Hilda. “I’m not sure how we’re going to handle Salvha and Pau. You’ve given me enough to explain to them, but—” 

“— it’s going to be bad,” Jack finished for her. 

“Oh, indeed,” Nico said. “Sera Tyler, do you want—” He interrupted himself. “Of course you don’t; my apologies.” 

“Needs must,” Rose said tightly. 

“Indeed. Still, we know them. We can at least help ease them into this.” A look came over his face, one Rose recognized from having seen it on Jack’s and the Doctor’s face. She had no idea that it had become a common one on her own. “The real Luisa is gone—” 

“This is the real Luisa,” Rose cut him off, stubborn. _This girl should be respected._

“The original Luisa,” Hilda said, with a quick look at Machado. “The original girl, her body has died.” 

Machado nodded sharply. “My apologies again, the original has died and this Luisa … is dying as well. Where does that leave the other girl?” 

Everyone looked at her, and it was, finally, too much. 

“I don’t know! I’m not an expert! I’m just a … a bloody useless shopgirl! What the hell do you expect me to do?” 

The others stared. Jack dropped Luisa’s hands and reached for Rose’s, but she slapped him away, breathing hard and seeing red. 

Rose was aware, in a distant way, that her explosion of fury was perfectly out of place. She understood that the most logical thing to do was to calm down, and plan with these people, figure out the best way to keep Filomena alive, and to use her information to help get everyone what they wanted. She knew that she’d already shed her allotted number of tears when the TARDIS disappeared; that she’d had her one ( _two? three?_ ) allowable breakdowns, that there was no time for another, that it was simply wasting all the time she’d fretted about only moments earlier. 

She also knew she could no more stop herself than she could defeat gravity. “Why are you standing here gawping at me?” she barked. “She wants to see the man she loves before she dies. And her … her father. Go on, go and do what you said. Get them. Now, before she’s gone!” 

The stocky man, Jao, got up from the floor and walked past everyone in the room. “I’ll do it.” 

************************* 

In the end, it was the father took the most convincing. 

“No. No.” He refused to get close to the couch, and glared tearfully at Nico. “ I know what you all think of me, but I didn’t think you would stoop to such cruelty—” 

“I’m not lying,” Rose said, putting a hand on his arm, and wishing very hard that Luisa would regain consciousness. “I don’t know you, or these people, so I have no reason to tell you anything but the truth. And you, you wrote that pamphlet. You know what silk can do.” 

The older man’s lips quivered and the tears overflowed, running down his face. “No,” he repeated. “No.” 

The little man, Salvha, spoke. “This is her, Pau.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off the girl on the sofa since Jao brought him in from the back hall. He’d spared one astonished goggle at Rose before he registered Luisa. 

“No.” It was a whisper now. 

“Yes. It’s her. I know. She was on the juggernaut. She knew me.” His voice cracked slightly. Jack, who was standing with Nico and Hilda, raised his eyebrow in Rose’s direction. She nodded. Salvha continued. “I didn’t … I didn’t see her. But … the information I had on the shipment was right, after all. _Sera lumina …._ ” 

Salvha walked across the small room. “I —” He nodded jerkily to Rose, in what felt to her like some sort of quasi-military acknowledgement. “ —I should apologize to her. Tell her I’m sorry.” 

“What’re you sorry about, ‘Vella?” It was barely more than the ghost of a whisper, but Luisa was awake. 

“I … I’m sorry about everything,” he said, dropping to his knees next to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.” 

“D-don’t blame you. I d-didn’t look like m-m-m’self.” To Rose’s astonishment, the girl managed a wheezy laugh. To her greater astonishment, Salvha laughed too, although his ended in a sob. 

“Luisa—” 

The girl raised one trembling hand to his lips. “Shhh, love. L-listen t’me now.” He nodded. “You know I’m going, right? That I’m gone?” 

Salvha grasped the little fingers that lay against his mouth with both his hands, but didn’t move them. He simply nodded again. 

“I’m lucky. I g-get the chance t-t’tell you that I love you, so very m-m-much, and that I’m s-s-sorry, for doubting you and … and everything else—” She coughed, then, a painful wrack that left blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Rose wordlessly reached across Salvha to wipe the blood away with the already spattered cloth she’d been using for that duty. 

“Th-th-the man. ‘Nverno …” Now her voice was stronger. “Filo...m-mena. The other one who’s here with m-me. This is her body. Sh-sh-she knows how to get to him. Listen to her.” She stopped speaking and began to pant shallowly. 

“Luisa? Love?” Salvha whispered against her fingers, leaning toward the girl. Rose leaned in further herself, holding her breath. _Please, Luisa, not yet, you’ve still some things to say._

“He killed me. P-pr-prom..m.. _promise_ me you’ll k-kill him.” 

Behind her, Rose heard Hilda take a sharp breath and Pau whimper. 

“I’ll kill him,” Salvha said, very gently. Rose knew the hatchet-faced little man, his cheeks wet with tears, would keep his word. 

“Papa … _Pouco Papa …._ ” 

Rose felt Sampaio move, coming from behind her. _So he’s finally accepted it._ She shifted, to give him room beside Salvha. 

“Luisa?” Pau’s voice had lost its querulous tone. “You — I’m so sorry, so sorry—” 

It was no more than a murmur now, Luisa’s voice, but Rose could make it out, even if she couldn’t understand what was being said. 

“ _Nã’chore, Papa. Ag’restou livre. ‘stou com Mama querida._ ” 

“Oh God, don’t leave me … _Senh’ra de luz_ … don’t… no, never mind. I love you, Luisa, _minha linda, minha menina…_ ” 

“I kn-know, Papa. Love you, too.” 

She fell silent. Her fingers, which Salvha had been holding loosely, disengaged, fell. And Rose knew. 

It was very quiet in the room as the two men wept. 

If Rose had thought it would be hard to see Luisa die, it was harder still to remind those around her that there was still another woman in that body, someone they had to save ( _if we can, dear lord._ ) She felt like she was treading on other peoples’ hearts when she spoke. “Filomena?” 

The girl on the sofa didn’t reply, and Rose’s breath caught in her throat. Then the fingers that had so lately fallen fluttered, and Rose started to breathe again. “Thank god .... 

“I’m sorry, really sorry, but I need to get in there,” she said to Salvha and Pau, as gently as she could. “I need to check on — on Filomena. She’s … she’s still there. But she’s in bad shape.” 

Salvha glared at her. Pau paid no attention, so Rose repeated herself, more firmly. “Please. Give me room.” She touched their shoulders, then deliberately moved between them. That physical interference seemed to jolt them out of their fugue state, and they struggled to their feet. Salvha moved toward Jao and the others, scrubbing at his face as he did so. Pau lingered for a moment, reached out and almost touched the still figure on the couch, then shook himself and turned on his heel. When he walked past Nico, he straightened his shoulders. 

“I can help you,” was all he said to Machado, but the younger man inclined his head in condolence, absolution, and acceptance of fealty. 

Jack moved to Rose’s side. “Sweetheart, we have a cot in the back. It’ll be more comfortable for …” He looked to her for the correct name. 

“Filomena. Just Filomena, now. An’ I didn’t get to say goodbye.” 

He put an arm around her, and she cried. “You gave her a chance to say goodbye, Rose. Hold on to that.” 

“Yeah, I’ll hold onto that,” she agreed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Huh. I didn’t think I had any more tears left.” 

“There are always more tears, darlin’.” 

***************************** 

It didn’t take Jack and Jao too long to get Filomena to the back bedroom cot. She woke up long enough to ask for Rose. 

“I don’t f-f-feel her anymore,” she said. 

“Luisa’s gone,” Rose confirmed as she once more knelt by the other woman’s side. “She got what she needed to do done.” 

_“Co’t’dinha_ … But … I’m still here.” 

Her tone of relieved disbelief didn’t surprise Rose at all. The little soldier had been convinced she would die as soon as Luisa did. _You might still, but we take our miracles as they come_ Rose thought. “Yeah you are. You’re stronger than you thought you’d be, aren’t you? An’ Luisa … Luisa wants you to keep fightin’. She wants someone to puni— to kill the man who did this to her. To you, to both of you.” 

Filomena breathed a deeper, fuller breath than she had for some time. “Sounds g-go-good t’me. Let me sleep awhile, Rose, eh? I’ll b-b-be better after I sleep.” 

“You do that,” Rose said. “Just a little while, though. There’s a lot to do.” 

“Yeah. I’ll t-t-talk to Maior Neves about th-the codes when I wake up.” She closed her eyes. 

Rose stood up and Jack, who had been waiting in the doorway, held out his arms. His embrace steadied Rose and, when she looked into his tired eyes, she realized he was steadied by her presence. “She knows the way to where … where I think the Doctor is.” 

“The lab,” Jack said. Their eyes locked in fearful understanding. 

****************************** 

When the knock on the door came, Pau refused to go into the back, although Salvha tried to chivvy him rearward. “I’m not hiding any more,” he said stubbornly. 

Nico opened his mouth, then shut it and smiled crookedly before shrugging. “It’s a knock on a door. If it had been someone trying to kill us, I imagine they wouldn’t stand on ceremony that way. Still, it pays to be careful. Jao?” 

Jao unholstered his gun on one side of the door, and Salvha silently moved to the other side, his knife unsheathed; Hilda opened it. 

For some time afterward, Rose remembered that she came close to laughing out loud as the door opened and everyone — Machado, Hilda, Jao, Salvha and Sampaio — gaped like landed carp at the crisply-uniformed woman who stepped across the threshold. 

She in turn, looked around the room with only slightly less amazement. 

“All of you? That’s not what I expected. Hello, Nico, Hilda. It’s been a very long time.” 

Hilda was the first person to regain her composure. “Hello, Isobel … yes it has. Are you here to—” 

“— No. If I had a brain in my head, I _would_ be, but no. I’m here to ask for your help, and to offer some of my own to you. I imagine that you and your … visitors—” She stopped and leveled a cool gaze at Rose and Jack. “ — would like unimpeded access to General Command, and possibly to FCD. I may be of service.” 

That elicited another stunned silence, one that Jack made himself break. “This is obviously something short of a happy reunion, Miss...” 

“Sous-Tenante Isobel Fahrar,” the woman responded. 

This time Rose was the one who startled unnoticed. This was Filomena’s commanding officer, she realized, unnerved. _One more coincidence? What are you doing?_ Whoever she asked silently chose not to answer. Perhaps not all coincidences had a blue-tinged origin, then. Still … was she here about Filomena? Was she here to take them all in? How the hell is she here? 

“Pleased to meet you, Sous-Tenante Isobel Fahrar. Captain Jack Harkness.” 

“I know.” 

Jack’s eyes narrowed, but he kept his smile steady. “How’d you happen to find us?” 

“Laowhra,” Pau Sampaio spoke up from his spot near the narrow hallway. “She told you. That’s why she was down in the street.” 

Fahrar nodded. “If she’s smart, she’s on her way to get her man now. I arranged it.” 

Jack continued when no one spoke up. “You say you want to help us, and you obviously aren’t here because you want to swap old war stories —” He stopped, eyed Hilda and Nico, then resumed. “Although I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d been in some of the same firefights.” 

“Not on the same side,” the woman said. She might have smiled. “But you are right. We … knew each other.” 

“Ah.” Jack waited. 

“There was a time when we walked in some of the same circles. But we had differences of opinion. I was … ignorant of a lot of things. Deliberately so, I imagine.” she continued. 

Nico had said nothing since Fahrar walked in the door. “Why should I not shoot you now, Isobel?” 

“You’ll have to get in line.” 

“Really.” Nico looked thoughtful. “Then I shall put it off. And in answer to your comment, of course I want unimpeded access to General Command. But I doubt the trustworthiness of a member of General Command to get me there without putting me in irons.” 

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll not bore you with all the details, but I can tell you with absolute veracity that my days as a member of General Command are in the past.” She sounded wry. “Or will be sometime within the next half-hour. Until then, however, I can get you and whoever else might be part of your … group … past the first two perimeter checks. 

“After that, you’re on your own, but I know your abilities, all of you. After all, I was never able to bring you in.” She actually smiled at them. “If anyone can take down Inverno, you can. And if you bring him down, if you dent the silk trade … maybe this world can start to right itself.” 

“ _Sera Lumina_ , woman, what’s got into you?” Nico breathed. 

Fahrar’s smile turned blackly bitter. “ I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. There was someone— never mind. My epiphany is not the point; getting Inverno is. 

“He’s at General Command right now; he’s got a lab there and he’s got your alien friend on one of his surgical tables,” Fahrar said, abruptly turning her attention to Jack and Rose. “If you want to rescue him, you will probably have to take out Inverno and his people, so I imagine you’ll be willing to cast your lot with Nico and Hilda. Luckily, as far as I can tell, he keeps his protection detail small. Unluckily, I never had the clearances to go to his so-called ‘medical research’ facilities. You’ll have to use brute force to get in.” 

Now was the moment, Rose knew. “Tenante?” 

“You had an aide, named Filomena Mireilles.” 

Fahrar looked uncertain for the first time. “How do you know that?” 

“She’s here. She’s — Inverno used silk on her. She’s dyin’, or she will die unless we can get the Doctor— the one you called alien, the one who was taken to that prison with me — unless we get him out. He might be able to save her.” 

Now Fahrar was plainly shaken. “Where is she? Why — ?” 

Jao spoke up, his face like granite. “Because she’s one of ours, Fahrar.” 

Rose couldn’t map the emotions that crossed the officer’s face, but she could imagine. She hurriedly continued speaking. “An’ she knows the codes to get into the labs.” 

“She knows the codes,” Fahrar repeated blankly. “Well, that explains why they didn’t second her along with me.” 

“Indeed,” Jao said, still grim; it was clear he didn’t trust the woman in front of him. Then again, Rose thought, she didn’t think anyone in the room trusted her. That didn’t matter, clearly. They were willing to accept her offer. 

“Let me see her,” Fahrar said, and it sounded like a plea. 

“She’s asleep.” 

“Please.” 

Rose showed her to the room with the rickety cot. She’d half expected Fahrar to drop to her knees to be close to Filomena, but she simply stood and watched as her sleeping aide breathed stertorously. “Your friend can save her?” 

“Dunno for sure,” Rose said. “But I know for sure he’s the only one on this planet who stands a chance of doin’ it.” 

"She knows the codes to the silk labs,” Fahrar said yet again. 

“Yeah. She says so, and I believe her.” 

“She was always good with numbers.” 

“She still is.” Rose glared. “She still _is_. She’s alive.” 

That’s when Fahrar’s composure truly broke, although she managed to keep the anguish to a low gasp. “Not gone now, you bastard,” she murmured, almost to herself, before straightening her back and setting her shoulders. “Then we need to wake her. It’s time to get to work.” 

_tbc_

_For those who wonder about the First Empire Neo-Portuguese in this chapter, Luisa told her father, “Little papa, don't cry. I'm free now. I'm with dearest Mama.” And he, in turn, called her “My lovely, my little girl.” When Filomena learned that Luisa had disappeared, she called her a poor little thing._


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor has a conversation, his rescuers prepare their plan, and Inverno runs into an unexpected problem.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ve brought the Doctor fully back into the equation, if not into full action.  
>  **Edited by** my beloved **dr_whuh** ; all mistakes, from misspellings to bad pacing and illogical plot twists, are mine.  
>  **Disclaimer:** as much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole property of the BBC and their respective creators. I do, however, love them, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.  
> 

He went from the warmth of hands cupping his face, of arms cradling him and protecting him to the dull knife of bone-deep cold, and it was like being born into death.

“Hhhuuhh….” It burned his throat. When he tried to open his eyes, he found that they were gummed and iced shut. He raised both hands to his face, swallowing panic as his knuckles scraped the back of an unseen barrier, and scrubbed at his eyes until he could open them. The panic climbed back up his throat as he realized that he was enveloped in a dark, close, and coffin-like place that he couldn’t identify and grew as he saw the rivers of artron energy glimmering under the skin on the back of his hands.

_Be still, child, and calm thyself._

Was that the memory of someone who had been kind to him in his ancient childhood? He recalled the double heartbeat of someone older than himself, arms around him as he struggled, the steady warmth of repeated assurances that no one would leave him, that he was safe from what he’d seen in the Schism, that no one would make him look at it again — 

_Do not struggle, wilt make it worse._

Who was it? The Doctor comprehended that he was still scrubbing at his eyes, and pulled his fingers away from his face. Who was it speaking to him?

_It matters not, it only matters that thou must not panic or wilt burn when thou needst not._

Right. The artron energy … he focused on the problem, willing himself not to dwell on the dark or the confinement. He moved his hands back up where he could see them, and forced himself to watch the patterns of energy. 

They were sluggish ( _Just like your brain you Gallifreyan git_ ) — 

— The cold.

Of course. The cold had shut his eyes. Now it was holding off an artron burst, and probably keeping him from going into a regeneration cycle. 

Wait; why on Earth, or anywhere else, was he throwing off enough artron energy — 

It hit him then, the vision of the Memory Market, the square sunlit and windblown, with Rose and Jack sitting, empty-eyed, a length of silk between them. 

_He gasped at the pain, at the fearful, longing tenderness that burned through every rationalization and barrier he’d raised against it._

_It burned in his mind and in his hearts; brighter, hotter, and more dangerous than the lamia. It threatened to consume him._

_Perhaps, he thought in his agony, he should let it._

“No!”

That came out far more clearly than he expected. His head came up involuntarily and he banged it on the roof of wherever he was. He swore violently at the pain, but it helped keep his mind from the heat and agony of that memory. Each passing moment spent inside this — what, casket? — was time spent away from them — 

He became very still in the darkness. He could not flee the enclosed space he was in, at least not yet, and he could not escape the memory. Nor, he reluctantly decided, should he; real or hallucinatory, it was, nevertheless, true. How could he deny it?

_Good child._

But he could not afford to love them, he thought to himself as much as he did to the unknown entity inside his head.

_You know that they love thee. Wilt turn them away? They know the danger; do not insult them._

_I respect them!_ he protested.

There was no answer, just a palpable sense of slightly irritated disbelief that he ruefully accepted in his still-not-completely-alert state. He was too arrogant; no matter how much he celebrated humanity, he was too prone to remembering his own heritage and dismissing theirs ….

The dark pressed in on him, interrupting thoughts that grew increasingly uncomfortable even as they grew more clear.

Enough! He needed to get out of wherever this was.

_What wilt thou then?_

He had no answer to the question he knew was really being asked, so he cast about for something to put the questioner off his trail.

_Who art thou?_ He knew he was broadcasting in Gallifreyan, using the words of childhood. He didn’t think that was the wrong way to address whoever it was who was addressing him. _Do I know thee?_

_Hast long known me._

_Do I trust thee?_

His head echoed with unheard laughter. _Listen to thyself._

He felt his brow crease. Things were insanely surreal, here in the dark —

Oh.

Of course he trusted this one, he realized, in the same moment that he knew Her. 

_You!_ How had he not known?

Again the sense of laughter, although it was now gentle, like a nurse at an invalid’s bedside.   
_I forgive thee for not recognizing me._

_You called me a child!_ He was torn between ire and absurd pleasure. 

_Thou responded as one. Shall I then call thee Thief? For didst take me and flee._

He knew She was teasing him, walking him further and further away from panic, and toward full wakefulness in order to escape his confines. But he found himself reluctant to move. He suspected that once he was up and out, She would stop speaking to him so clearly, and it was such a balm to “speak” Gallifreyan again. He loved Her, he communicated with her constantly in a way that he would be hard pressed to explain to anyone; not quite telepathy, but a form of mental empathy unlike anything else he was familiar with. And it was good, very good ( _all that saved you after ... after_ ) but it was not this. He longed for it to continue —   
_I have not spoken like this with thee before_ , he told Her. _Thou art ...very clear._

_Wert ill, close to changing._

It was the second time She had said it. Burning, close to changing … Was it the regeneration, then, that she was fighting? He was confused. She had never minded his changes before, or at least She had never made him aware that She minded. But perhaps now … was that why She was so clearly communicating with him? 

_Reaching thee was ... important_ came the indirect agreement. 

As he listened to Her voice, he heard the palest echo of the sorrow and rage he remembered from that ( _No, forget, don’t think about_ ) Moment in the War. _Thou art afraid for me? I could survive, thou knowest that._

The rage surged, powered by fear. _No. Shalt not. Shalt not, shalt not, no, not now, not now, too soon, no, no, nonono—_

He flinched from Her panic, and agreed. _I shall not burn. I will stay, for Thee._ To show Her his good faith, he started the breathing exercises that would bring his hearts under control and lessen the chance of regeneration.

_And them._ She was calmer now, but She would not let it go. _Shalt stay, shalt live, for them._ It was not quite an order. It was … a plea? _They come to rescue thee. They will tell thee they love thee. Wilt answer?_

He was silent. 

_Wilt answer?_

He was about to demur again, when he finally felt it, like a distant wave rolling towards him from Her. Within the tide of rage and sorrow, and rapidly subsuming it, was something else. It was … he hesitated over the word, because the right meaning was lacking in Gallifreyan, and could only be approximated in non-Gallifreyan. And that approximation; should he even try using it? 

_Why not, Thief?_ It was unambiguous. _I am who I am, and I transcend Gallifrey and all its meanings. Thou hast the right word._

His mind was abruptly awash in images, of everyone who had ever traveled with him. She admitted them all into Herself; some with wry forbearance, others with bright affection, others still with tenderness. No creature of whom She disapproved ever stayed long. And for these two — his hearts constricted — the two who came to him after the War ….

Love, then. She felt it. Not, perhaps, as he did, or as any being stuck in only three dimensions would, but She felt it. For the London shopgirl, for the slippery hero. 

_Dost learn slowly. It is worth the wait._ Said with great satisfaction. _Dost understand, now?_

He swallowed the salt tears down, and wondered again why one could cry with joy and have it be as painful as tears of sorrow. It didn’t matter. He knew the difference. _I lie in darkness, in cold, trying not to regenerate. Wilt thou not forgive my laggardly ignorance?_

Again, the silent laughter, but warmer than ever. _Always. Now … break thy bonds._

How? 

_That, child, is up to thee._

He felt Her withdraw, and couldn’t help but call out, like the child She called him, _I love thee, wilt thou not stay?_ There was no answer. 

Of course there wasn’t, he told himself. She had said what She needed to, at least by Her lights. He was lucky to have had what he had of Her, here in the dark and cold. Still, he could not stop himself from broadcasting one last message, imbuing it with all the many levels of meaning that the Gallifreyan phrase could encompass: _Again thou hast saved me._

He heard nothing that could be interpreted as words, but he felt another great surge of warmth. He accepted it gratefully. 

Now it was time to move, as She said. And that meant it was time to start thinking — really thinking, with his big Time Lord brain. It was reasonably thawed by now ….

The Doctor considered a moment; he was obviously in a morgue drawer. He wasn’t naked, although he wiggled his toes and realized someone had taken his shoes and boots — he suppressed his irritation — which argued against the idea that whoever put him in here was either an ordinary morgue attendant, who would have stripped him completely, or someone who thought he was dead. 

Inverno. The name and the face came back, and the memory of the silk infusion dripping into his vein. He’d been restrained for that part, he recalled. He resisted thinking about it, especially the recollection of an inordinately gorgeous blue silk sheet falling on him from what seemed like a great height. His shiver had nothing to do with the drawer’s chill. He had hoped that his biology, which he had felt adjusting to silk’s chemical callsigns after his first run-ins with it, would protect him, but it didn’t seem to have been very successful, judging by his current whereabouts.

Still, he wasn’t dead, he told himself firmly, and a human might well have died under what he’d been subjected to. He hadn’t regenerated, and he seemed as sane as he was ever likely to be, which left him well equipped to get back on his feet. 

So … alright; in a morgue drawer and — the hand he started to move toward his jacket stopped when he realized the bastards had taken his jacket, and with it his screwdriver — without a technological way to get out. What was next? He didn’t have enough room in the drawer to bring his legs up for a good kick at the door, and he doubted he’d be able to force his way out that way anyhow. Bare feet were no match for a locked door. 

He calmed himself further, trying to tune out the sound of his own breathing, of his hearts and the blood circulating through them; he needed to hear beyond the drawer door. He took a deep breath, thankful that the air was fresh…

Wait a minute ... fresh? He reconsidered his options. A completely airtight drawer would have been stuffy, even if he’d only been put inside a short while ago, and he felt as if he’d been locked in there for some time. He snorted slightly. Someone hadn’t bothered to check the latch once they shoved his sorry carcass inside.

“Must’ve been a scary package to deliver,” he muttered, grimly amused, getting a better understanding of his situation. Well, it was time to get the package out of storage. 

Tilting his head up as far as he could, he peered in the direction of his own feet. He was patient now, waiting for his eyes to see more clearly. There it was; the faintest graying of the black, in a thin rectangle. That was what he needed to know. Even with his bare feet, even without much purchase in an enclosed space, he could force the door. One good shove with his heels at just the right spot ….

It worked. And it prompted an almost immediate reaction from the man who had yelped in what he’d probably deny later was terror at the sound of the Doctor’s door slamming open. 

“ _Que diabos? Sera Lumina…_ Hey, Caetano, there’s a live one in here!” The attendant was young, and he was absolutely horrified. 

“The live one would like a little hand gettin’ out,” the Doctor said, his voice little more than scratch and gravel. Speaking aloud was harder than he’d expected it to be. Apparently his vocal cords hadn’t thawed out quite as quickly as his brain. “A hand here?”

“Oh. Oh … oh, yeah, here, let me pull the drawer out. _Sangre …_ Why in heaven’s name did you crawl in there?” The attendant didn’t wait for Caetano, whoever that was. He pulled out the drawer, and stared at the Doctor in complete shock.

This one obviously wasn’t one of Inverno’s goons, or he’d have shoved him back in the box once he realized who the drawer-dweller was. The Doctor took advantage of that ignorance.   
“Oh, you know, typical stupid dare from the guys in—” He decided against saying Central Command and went for something more innocuous. “ — in accounting. They wagered I couldn’t get into the morgue unseen, and I told ‘em I could do it in my sleep. When I saw this open, I just decided I’d lie down a minute just to prove the point, and well —” He grabbed the attendant’s outstretched arm, and used it to help him sit up. “ — I didn’t realize the door would lock while I was inside. Joke’s on me, eh?” He wore his friendliest, most guileless smile.

“You’re a fool, you know. If I hadn’t chanced along, you could have suffocated in there,” the attendant said, ignoring the fact that the Doctor had actually gotten himself out. “Here … can you stand up? You’re cold as ice! Do you need a blanket?” Then he turned back to what was apparently an office area beyond the main room. “Caetano! Are you there?”

The more people involved, the higher the likelihood one of Inverno’s people would be one of them. The Doctor swung his legs over the side of the drawer and hopped down, intending to start a chatty retreat to the main morgue doors, which he could see behind the attendant. It didn’t end well; he staggered, dizzy, and the attendant, whose badge identified him as Valentim, reached out and steadied him.

“I knew it; you need professional help. Caetano … damnit, Caetano, where are you — oh, never mind, I’ll call them. You just sit back down and I’ll go get a medic.”

“No, no, don’t do that,” the Doctor said, trying not to sound panicked, “I really don’t wanna get in trouble with my boss, an’ I don’t want the rest of the fellas to get in trouble, either. You know how it is,” he said, reaching up and pulling Valentim into a half-hug that he hoped the latter would interpret as a ‘between us lads’ gesture. “I just misjudged how high off the floor I was. And wouldn’t you know it, my lunch hour’s almost up. If I don’t get back there, there’ll be hell to pay.” 

As he talked, he slipped off the drawer again, this time much more smoothly, and he walked toward the main morgue doors, still with his arm chummily around Valentim’s shoulder and looking him in the face so that the attendant wouldn’t realize he had no shoes or socks on. 

“Well, if you’re sure,” Valentim said doubtfully.

“Absolutely,” the Doctor said heartily. “ I can’t tell you how glad I am that you were there, and I can see that you’re a credit to the department.” They were finally at the door. The Doctor grabbed the door handle, threw it open, and detached himself from Valentim, turning with complete confidence to his left, and walking off down a corridor whose terminus he had absolutely no knowledge of.

“Hey! Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”echoed behind him.

“Left ‘em on my desk,” he responded, waving his hand airily, but not turning to face the questioner, because he abruptly had to concentrate on keeping his vision clear. He saw another hall opening up on the one he was in, and took another left. Once he was safely out of Valentim’s sight, he sagged against the wall, slid to the floor, and tried to figure out where he was — and how to escape. 

*************************

“Fort’leza Central Detention can’t be our goal. That’s not where he is.” Fahrar barely looked at the floor plans Jao had brought out and laid on the coffee table. “Inverno took him. He’s up at General Command. 

“Worse, he’s probably in ‘Medical,’ which is the first level of Inverno’s research department —”

“ — under which lie all the levels further and further into the mountain, where all the worms are, yes, you’ve said it several times now.” Nico was restraining his impatience with difficulty. “We have very little time. Your clearances are about to evaporate, so we don’t have the luxury of arguing with each other. The question is, where do you think your evanescent clearance will help us the most? Who is most apt to pay attention to you, and not to alerts about you? Won’t the jail be the easiest to penetrate?”

“It may be porous, but it’s still too far from where you need to go. And warnings about me could surface anywhere —”

“I know. I know how we can get into Central Detention.”

Fahrar and Machado stopped glaring at each other, and turned to stare at Rose. The rest of the group had been watching the argument, and very carefully staying out of it until she spoke up.

“What?” Fahrar was snappish, and Rose thought it might be a very hard thing to be one of her staff. 

"The best way to get into any guarded place is to find the one door that no one wants to use, isn’t that what the Doctor always told us, Jack?” She looked over to where he stood across from where she sat on the sofa, her arm around a still sallow and shaky Filomena. 

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “He did, and it is. What do you have in mind?”

“The place we escaped from,” she said. “It’s where they ship the silk victims out. I mean, I think it’s a delivery point, too, but it’s where they loaded us onto the lorry with … with the, the other victims. The silk victims that were the —” she stumbled, remembering the frightened, apparently mindless shells that had been with Luisa and her in the rolling darkness. “—the rejects from Inverno’s work. I think they were going to be used as … as slaves elsewhere.” 

Fahrar crossed her arms and eyed Rose speculatively. “You did get out in that juggernaut, then?” 

Rose tried not to glower at the woman when she said, “ I did. I got out of the first holding cell they put me in, and found the Doctor. He gave me his sonic —”

“His what?” 

“Sorry, he gave me his sonic screwdriver. It’s a tool, it doesn’t matter, but it helped me find a hidden stairwell that took me down to some sub-basement.”

She gently disengaged from Filomena and stood up, wanting to stretch her legs despite the plethora of bodies in the small room. Salvha quietly took her place.

“Ah.” Fahrar's look of understanding was mixed with revulsion. “Down there. It used to be a supply dock. Since Inverno, it’s been a conduit for his sales, and for whoever he wants to have disappeared.” She said it simply, as if she was talking about some prosaic matter of everyday business, but the look on her face made Rose feel just a little less mulish about working with the woman.

“Is that why the door was secret?” 

“The hidden door? No. That’s been there for generations, probably since the time of the Mad Governor."

“You mean Alfonso,” Nico said. The two nodded at each other. Rose saw the other Lizhbauans nodding too. Shared history, she thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. All very interesting, but not something to take up time with. 

She coughed to get everyone’s attention again. “If we went in through that gate, especially if we go during the shift of the man who was handling everything when we were loaded … he seemed pretty lax, so it could work.”

“You mean Celestino,” Fahrar said, her expression showing even more distaste.

“Faugh … he’s still there? Why wasn’t he cashiered years ago?” Jao looked equally disgusted. 

“Don’t know, didn’t have time to ask. He’s been the least of my worries, at least until he fucked up with our most recent prisoners.” Fahrar nodded abstractedly to Rose “ I moved him from jail duty to the lower levels immediately after his people managed to lose you, Sera Tyler. Being in charge of the supernumerary transports seemed to me to be the place he could do the least damage. And you’re right. Going in there could work. He’s a drunkard and a bully, and he knows he’s one step away from being cashiered because of that. And he doesn’t pay much attention to alerts. It’s still a risk, though.”

“I could help, Tenante.” Filomena looked at her one-time superior with the kind of hero-worship she’d shown when originally telling Rose her story. 

“You’re already helping by getting these people into Inverno’s labs. Focus on that, Mireilles.” Fahrar responded, brisk, but somehow gentle, adding with breathtaking understatement, “You have a limited amount of energy.”

I still think she should stay here with one of our people,” Jao interjected. “We have the codes now, thanks to her, and she’d be a lot safer.” 

“No! No, I can do this,” Filomena said as forcefully as she could. “ I promise I won’t slow anyone down.”

Privately, Rose understood Jao’s logic. Filomena would slow them down, no matter what she promised. It wasn’t her fault that she was still deathly ill despite having lost the interloper in her brain, but she was; weak and wobbly, still afflicted with fever and a vicious cough. Then again, that was why Rose knew everyone would respect her wishes. Filomena Mireilles was dying, and she wanted to die fighting.

“I’ll make sure she gets there, Jao,” Salvha said. “And she won’t hinder us.” He'd put his arm around her, and she leaned into him, probably without realizing it, Rose thought. Rose didn’t want to think about why the two were sticking so close to each other, even with Luisa gone, because she didn’t want to start crying again.

“Just so we’re clear,” Jack said, rerouting the conversation; “Once we’re inside the jail building, how long do you expect it to take us to go your underground route from that complex to General Command?”

“Roughly 15 minutes from the sub-basement Sera Tyler is talking about,” Fahrar said. “It actually cuts time from the journey.”

“Great, good, fantastic,” Jack said. He had an index figure to his lips, which Rose knew was his operational tell. “Nico; you, Jao and Hilda, and Filomena of course, will be with us for most of the way, since all the action — the worms, and the Doctor — appear to be in roughly the same part of General Command, well past the first set of coded doors.” 

He looked over from where he was leaning on the wall next to the flat’s front door, and smiled at Filomena. “Thanks for the floor plans.” Then he looked back at Nico and Jao, who were kneeling beside the coffee table, where they’d been poring over the hand drawn maps Filomena and Fahrar had pieced together. “If we have to split up once we get past those first doors, let’s keep the split as short as possible.” 

“That’s why we have radios,” Jao grunted.

Hilda had just finished working some figures on a notepad. “Our part of the mission depends entirely on your part, Captain. If, as you say, your Doctor Smith can help us accelerate the worm displacement — ours for theirs — so that we don’t have to come back for a second foray, then all we’ll need are 20 minutes to account for the remaining healthy breeding stock and bring those trays with us.

“But it _does_ depend on your Doctor,” she said, standing up and walking over to Jack. She was the picture of a stern parent as she said “ I am willing to expect miracles; after seeing your ship, it’s fairly easy. But you are aware of your responsibility?”

“Intimately.” Jack nodded once to her, then to Nico and Jao, his expression grim again. “Once we find him, I believe he can bring the TARDIS to where he is.”

Rose watched the Lizhbauans glance at each other doubtfully. They were holding their tongues, she knew, but she understood what they weren’t saying. How could Jack be so sure? Or rather, since Rose was equally certain, how could the two of them be so sure? It was only the impossibility of the TARDIS interior that convinced Nico and Hilda to follow the two crazy aliens’ lead.

Rose wished she could explain why she and Jack knew that the TARDIS would come to the Doctor’s rescue this time, when it ... She … had not done so before. But there was no question in their minds. They’d taken a few minutes apart from everyone else in the flat, talking in low voices with each other, and confirming to their own satisfaction that it was indeed the Doctor’s ship calling to them. 

“She wants us to get to him,” Rose had hazarded, and Jack had agreed, saying, “ I think that right now we’re Her bridge to him. And She wants to get to him, probably even more than we do, if that’s possible. Once we’re all together —”

He hadn’t finished the sentence, nor had he needed to.

_So here we are, getting ready to storm the castle_ Rose thought. _Doing it on a wing and a prayer doesn’t even begin to cover it._

“We have about an hour until the evening meal,” Fahrar said, as she and Jao synchronized their watches with Salvha and the others, even Filomena. "Normally, I'd like to wait until then to get in, but there's no help for it; we need to move now. My auto is two blocks hence, along with my uniform. I’ll take Sera Tyler and Mireilles, Nico and Hilda. Neves, I leave it to you to get Adao, Harkness, and whoever else —”

“No one else.” Nico didn’t look at her as he said it. “Give us 10 minutes to suit up.” He turned to head down the back hall.

“You’re intent on weapons, then,” Fahrar said, looking after him. “That means we have to work faster; even the lower level of FCD will have weapons detectors.” Nico didn’t answer.

“If I still had my uniform,” Jao said. “For the short time we need to get into the building and then into the lower levels to GC, you could’ve handed them off to me. I’d have been guarding prisoners.”

“You might not need your uniform,” Fahrar replied, looking thoughtful. “If we get Celestino—” She looked at her watch. “And we can thank the Lady that his useless ass is coming on duty now — four to midnight, Common Empire Time.”

“He still drink on duty?” Jao was checking the guns that Nico had brought back with almost unsettling speed. Rose watched, fascinated, despite her unease around weapons.

“Oh, aye.” 

“That’ll suit. That’ll do just fine.” Rose shivered at how he said it. “There we go.” Jao checked the safety on the last piece, then looked at Jack. “How’s your aim?” 

Jack bared his teeth in what might, at a distance, look like a smile. “Well, nearly all my equipment was left in the bar, in my coat, but I didn’t let go of everything.” He pulled up his trouser leg and showed an ankle holster that Rose hadn’t known he was wearing. “This is small, but it works very well, especially at close quarters.”

“Projectile or energy?” Jao asked. 

“We’re dirtside — I prefer projectiles,” Jack responded. 

“Sera Tyler?”

“No. I don’t.” Rose hadn’t meant that to come out so flat. “ I mean, I can, if you insist. Jack’s taught me a bit.”

“We don’t need you to suit up, darlin’” Jack interposed, his grin real when he looked at her, completely false as he turned it to the military woman. “Between Jao, Nico, Salvha —”

“And me,” Hilda interrupted, sticking her weapon into her waistband, under her tunic. 

“ —and Hilda, yes, between us, I think we’ve got it handled. Rose, you know your part. You need to … call … for the Doctor, while we search for him.” 

Rose understood what he meant. “Got it.”

Another shared look among the Lizhbauans, and then Nico smiled that crooked smile of his. “Well, as interesting as that is, I’m going to assume that the Captain and Rose know what they’re talking about. I trust the both of them, as insane as that might make me.” 

As he stepped over to the front door, he stopped and looked back at them; at Fahrar and Salvha, working in unlikely tandem to support Filomena, at Jao and Hilda, who stood shoulder to shoulder and looked to him for orders; finally, at Jack and Rose, the two outworlders who had fallen into his path. “Here we all are. I’d thought this day was at least a few months off, and I’d foreseen a vastly different approach, but … life laughs at us, and we’d better go with the joke. Let’s go.” 

As they filed out of the tiny room, Rose caught a last look at Pau Sampaio, who’d been ordered to stay put. He looked shrunken and helpless as he sat on the lumpy sofa, his hands sitting quiet in his lap.

“Goodbye, Pau,” she said, still aching at Luisa’s loss and unable to imagine how the man felt. He deserved at least the dignity of a goodbye.

He stared at her. “Goodbye,” he managed.

***************************************

“ _Eminência._ ” 

Inverno kept his inflection level, his voice respectful, while he rose from his desk. _Sangre deix’tolo, sangre sancto’tolo …_ “This is a surprise.”

“I’m sure it is.” Dehde Bohlver’s face was sheened with sweat. His eyes were nothing but dark pupil and tell-tale bluish whites. Inverno cursed nonstop behind his placid expression. _Viciado, tolo …._

“You’ve got a xeno I want to see,” Bohlver said, sounding perfectly rational. Inverno had helped maintain that lie recently.

“Certainly.” Inverno was out in front of his desk now, gesturing the Governor to the best seat in the room, and glaring at his own people over the heads of Bohlver’s three men. How had they made it all the way up to his offices without someone warning him? “The xeno is in containment, but I’ll be glad to show —”

“ — And then we talk about how you’ve been lying to me about this Machado. He’s not dead, he’s not well in hand,” said the Governor of Lizhbau, the rationality melting away, as his voice rose. “He’s Nicola, and he’s out there. He’s coming to get us. To get me. You knew it. Deny it.” The black and blue of his eyes admitted of no logic now, no sanity.

Inverno could think of nothing to say.

_tbc_

**Language note, for those interested:** _Sangre deix’tolo, sangre sancto’tolo_ maps out very roughly to blood-spilling fool, specifically the spilling of holy blood. It’s another curse based largely on the Lizhbauan religion. _Viciado_ means addict.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our three heroes find each other, and the beginning of the end of the adventure commences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** my beloved and irreplaceable **dr_whuh**. Thank you, dearest.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole property of the BBC and their respective creators. I do, however, love them all, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

“Tenante, with all respect, you can’t be bringing —”

“Go ahead. Tell me what I can’t do.”

Fahrar had looked extremely impressive in her uniform as she’d prepared to wheel her vehicle into the juggernaut park, just as Jack had said softly, “Time, darlin’; sorry,” and had put the hood over her head. Rose remembered how Fahrar’s cap sat at an intimidating angle, how her jacket was tightly fitted and her pencil trousers sported a knife-sharp crease. The buttons on her epaulettes shone only slightly more than her boots. But Rose was betting it was the glitter in her eye that had captured Sargento Benito Celestino. 

“Well …” Celestino trailed off, his objections failing; under the hood — Rose tried to ignore how stifling it was — she imagined his face. He probably couldn’t take his own eyes off Fahrar. He probably looked like a rabbit unable to move under a hawk’s gaze. 

“Do you honestly think I’d be down here, wasting my time and yours, if these … _people_ —” and here Fahrar undoubtedly shot her supposed prisoners a look of purest contempt, “—weren’t needed up the hill, quickly and quietly?” 

“What … I mean, I know you have orders, but I’d be in trouble, too. I mean, I’ve got my own orders … I have reports I’ll need to — Tenante, you can’t bring people in this way without reporting who they are and who they’re being delivered to, it’s the rules!” 

Rose discovered that her hood had slipped around her head and one of its seams had, almost providentially, developed a tiny split. It didn’t give much of a view, but she saw Celestino adjust his frayed collar, and hold himself a little straighter. Her heart sank; why did now have to be the time this man decided to grow a backbone? The whole gambit depended on him caving to the Tenante.

Well, this part of it, she thought. Then, once they were shut of the sergeant and his immediate crew, the whole gambit would depend on something else, and then something else, and ( _stop it now or you’ll lose it_ ) … Rose swallowed, and started counting silently, to keep herself focused on something other than the hood and her claustrophobia. 

She stood quietly behind Fahrar, along with a hooded Filomena, Jao and Nico. None of them could risk their faces being seen, even though Nico had apparently had surgery to change his appearance. Salvha and Hilda were acting as their guards, since their faces weren’t known, or so Fahrar had said.

Jack was kitted out in a full uniform that Fahrar had pulled from the boot of her ground car. Fahrar had simply told the group that she’d grabbed it before she came to the safe house, “just in case.” Both Jack and Nico had raised an eyebrow, but Nico had only said, “Isobel, you don’t disappoint.” 

Salvha had been hastily outfitted with an aging Maldad uniform at the safe house; Nico had ripped off the insignia that might have identified him as something other than one of Fahrar’s grunts. Hilda wore a somewhat more presentable uniform top jacket, which Fahrar had also produced from her ground car. It didn’t quite fit — the buttons barely fastened — but Hilda had ruthlessly pulled her hair back into a military-style bun and scrubbed her face free of make-up. She was, as far as Rose could tell without looking, at the very rear of the group. 

Fahrar spoke again. “The _rules_ , Sargento, also require that one refrain from drinking on duty, and yet I am faced daily with you. And you are still here. A miracle, no? Perhaps, then, we can agree that I and my party will be going, and I will not put you on report for taking even one precious minute of my time.”

Rose heard the poisonous menace in her voice. So, clearly, did Celestino. He almost shook with the effort not to snarl when he said, “As the Tenante says.”

Rose felt someone push her, and she bit back on a curse, stumbling forward and trying to keep an unobtrusive hand on Filomena to help her stay upright. She hoped she could get the damned hood off her head soon.

She tried to remember the route she’d taken to reach the holding cells and the loading dock, work backwards, but after an initial three turns, she was baffled; she’d expected to wind up back in the stairwell, and had been bracing herself for the assault on her mind that had nearly floored her so badly only — oh lord, it was only a day or so ago, and it felt like forever — but she felt nothing.

“This place is empty,” she whispered to whoever was in front of her. “ I... I don’t feel —”

“They’re between shipments,” Fahrar murmured. “No prisoners, so no one’s wearing their psychic blockers. Might have been better for us if the cells were full.”

“No,” Rose hissed, her mind’s eye filled again with what she’d seen in the cages, in the blackness of the juggernaut. 

“Shhh,” came the other woman’s voice. Rose subsided. 

It took another confusing five minutes of stumbling against Fahrar and holding up Filomena as they inched their way through what seemed to to be some sort of sliding door, then up a short set of stairs, before she heard Fahrar sigh in relieved satisfaction. “As soon as we’re through this postern door, everyone can take off the hoods. No one uses this path to Central Command, and we’ll move faster if everyone can see.”

“Thank god.” Filomena didn’t quite whimper, but Rose wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. The little soldier was shivering, and she was tense with the effort to stand. Rose hoped being able to see would help steady her.   
“You alright?” she asked.

“I’ll manage,” Filomena said, before coughing weakly. “Thanks for … for keeping me upright.”

Fahrar and one of the others posing as soldiers wrestled the rest of them through what was apparently the postern. Everyone tore their hoods off as soon as they could. 

“What now?” Nico was trembling, too, Rose saw, but it was the same quiver she’d seen in the Doctor, or Jack, just before some breakout or escape during one of their jeopardy friendly adventures. It was repressed adrenaline, and Jack was almost vibrating with it as well. 

“We move as quickly as possible along the route under Gel ‘Colinas, ‘til we get to the lift I’ve circled on the read-write,” Fahrar said. “We head up to where Inverno’s holding cells — they’re on the map as well — are and grab your Doctor.” She hesitated, looking at Jack and Rose. “Then he will, you assure me, get us to this TARDIS, or bring it to us, and we use it to get into the labs, where you will do whatever it is you plan to do.” She hesitated again, and looked at Filomena. “And you will do it with Meireilles’ help, with her codes. She is part of this.” Rose felt Filomena try to hold herself taller. “For now, though, let’s focus on retrieving the alien. And let’s hope that we don’t have to use your weapons. As long as they’re turned off, weapons alarms won’t sound. Activate them, though — ”

“Yeah, got it,” Jack said. “No weapons on unless absolutely necessary. You’re sure the system doesn’t register old fashioned projectile?”

“Not at all sure,” Fahrar said. “No one in the forces uses them, so I don’t know if they’ll think to look for them.”

As plans went, it was horrible. No one in the group had disputed that when Jack said so. No one had disputed that it was the only one they had, either. And it depended on speed at this point. 

“No sense in standing there, then. Let’s go,” Rose said, realizing that she, too, was shaking with the desire to move. 

Jao looked at her, then chucked his thumb at Filomena. “I’ll carry her,” he said gruffly. 

“No, I can—” Filomena coughed again, and subsided. Sick she might be, but not foolish. “Alright.” In short order, Jao hoisted her onto his back. Fahrar got a look on her face that Rose couldn’t interpret. 

After that, Rose didn’t have much chance to think; she was too busy running, which also militated against any successful route memorization. She could tell that they were covering a large amount of ground, although some of it was vertical, up stairs that were narrow and broad by turns. She cast one look over her shoulder at Jao, and was satisfied to see that the man was keeping up. That fireplug build hid a lot of stamina; he wasn’t even breathing heavily, despite his extra load. 

“Here. Stop here.” Fahrar pointed the way down a broad hallway, painted in institutional green. “We go down this hall, to the lift at the end. That gets us to the rear of Inverno’s cell block.” At a look from Nico, she frowned. “We can’t risk another frontal bluff, not up here. We come in from the back, I still have keys, we get in and out with less chance of getting stopped.”

“As you wish,” he said. Rose couldn’t believe that he was cool enough to sound slightly sardonic. 

The ride up in the lift was tense, and Rose couldn’t help thinking of all the ways everything could explode in their faces. 

It would be a much faster operation if they knew precisely where the Doctor was, but all that Fahrar was certain of was the floor and the general block. Rose tried to cast her thoughts out, pictured them like a net cast out above the water, one she could drag through the water, back to shore, laden with fish. She wanted to catch the Doctor in that net, but this whole telepathy thing was so raw, so new, that she had no idea whether she was doing the right thing. 

Nevertheless, she persisted. _Doctor? Doctor? Can you hear me? Doctor!_

There was nothing. _So what else is new, Tyler?_ Instead of banging her head against the lift wall, she forced herself to focus her tension on the doors; she’d been in enough of these situations that she planned to plaster herself to one side of the lift or the other, in case they opened on someone with a weapon and a bad attitude. As she thought that, she realized that she was thinking the way Jack sounded, and it surprised a laugh out of her.

Everyone stared. “S’nothing,” she said. “Just—” She looked around her and shrugged. “Might as well laugh, yeah?”

There was silence. Then Filomena giggled. 

The lift doors opened. Two men in uniforms stared at them. 

“Tenante?” 

Rose had to admire Fahrar’s calm. “Yes. What do you want? I’m on my way with these prisoners to see Assistente Inverno —”

For one breathless moment, Rose thought it was going to work. 

_“Sangre—”_ Both men reached for their holsters.

Quick as a snake, Salvha ducked out from behind everyone else. It looked to Rose as if he’d just run into the soldier to her left. The soldier grunted, then coughed, his eyes wide. Salvha moved again, to his right, and the first soldier coughed a second time, blood bright on his lips. He fell, first to his knees and then on his face. 

“Salvha, no—” Nico hissed, but it was too late. The second soldier pivoted just as quickly as Salvha, brought up his weapon — not to fire, but to strike Salvha across the face. The little man staggered back, and Rose now saw the knife in his right hand. 

Jack was almost as fast as Salvha, and a good deal more trained. He kicked the second Maldad in the knee, grabbed the man’s left hand as it was grabbing for its communicator and knocked it to the floor. A split second more, and the man was also flat on the floor, held there by Jack’s half-nelson. Jack did something that Rose couldn’t quite make out, holding his stiffened index and middle fingers against the side of the soldier’s throat. She saw the light go out of the man’s eyes … her own eyes caught Jack’s. 

“He’s just unconscious,” he told her. 

She nodded at him, trying to smile. She didn’t like killing, and didn’t like to be around it, although she’d reached the point in traveling with the Doctor that she knew death, at least by misadventure, was an occasional repugnant eventuality. 

A siren sounded, and Jack grimaced, glaring at the communicator. “Shit. I should have stomped on it. Guess we don’t have to worry about weapons alarms now.”

Salvha grunted. “We wouldn’t have triggered anything if you—” He stopped, aware of Nico glaring at him.

Rose drew a breath, looking past Jack and Salvha, trying to determine which direction to run; the corridor ahead, or one of the corridors branching off it, just left and right of the lift doors. 

“To the left,” Fahrar snapped, and for a moment Rose thought the woman had read her mind, until she said,“The holding cells are down the main corridor; we go this way to get to the back doors.” Then she eyed Jack. “You should have killed him.”

“ _You_ should be quiet,” he snapped right back at her. “ I don’t kill if I don’t have to. Let’s go. Salvha, sheath the damned knife.”

Salvha looked at Nico, who nodded. He wiped the blade on his trousers and put it away. For a moment nobody stirred. Jack cursed softly under his breath as he retrieved the two soldiers’ stunners and threw them to Nico. “Any particular shade of green we’re waiting for?” 

Everyone took off after Jack and Fahrar; Salvha helped Jao keep up with Filomena and Hilda hurried Rose, with Nico bringing up in the rear. The featureless corridor seemed to lengthen with each passing second, but Rose told herself that was just her nerves. 

The door Fahrar stopped in front of looked no different than the other dark green steel doors on either side of it, but Fahrar keyed the lock with no hesitation. It opened silently, and she waved the rest of them in, shutting the door behind them only after she peered out, checking both directions.

“Find your friend,” she ordered. “Check the windows when I open them.”

Beyond the door were two short halls bracketing a double line of cells, four cells opening on each hall. Fahrar put a finger to her lips, then shook her head slightly, obviously realizing that there was little room for secrecy with sirens wailing. She went to a small control board on the wall and flipped one switch. Rose, who had edged over to peer down one of the halls, saw tiny viewports near the top of each door slide open. She ran past Fahrar and peered through one of the viewports, and heard the others do the same, running past her down that hall, or down the second one. 

No one was inside the cell. 

“Not here,” she called.

“Nor in the first two,” Jack responded. Between them, Machado and Hilda shook their heads. Hilda’s expression was tight, but Rose recognized the look of panic. She’d seen it often enough on her own face.

“Jao! Anyone over there?” Nico shouted. 

“No — all empty.”

“ _Sangre._ ” That was Nico, but Rose thought she heard the same curse from Salvha in the other hallway. 

“What now?” Hilda was fighting to be calm. 

At which point, everything went even more pear-shaped.

They heard him before they saw him.

“Eminência, before we go to the morgue — don’t worry, he’s not dead — we need to keep you safe until we find out what’s triggered the alarm. I — Fahrar?”

“I don’t care! Let your people take care of that, I want to see that xeno — what?” 

A tall, thin man, his uniform as impeccable as Fahrar’s, his hair and lips thin above and below a long nose, stood at the far end of the hall beyond Rose and the rest. He’d stopped in mid-stride after swinging around the far corner from some unseen entryway, saying nothing more; possibly struck dumb by surprise. 

To his right and slightly behind him was a much shorter man in what was probably this planet’s version of an expensive suit, Rose thought. When she saw his face — with that split second of clarity one can get in the moment before the car crashes — she saw drug or booze-generated erosion, time’s depredation, and, in his weirdly gray skin and heavy-lidded, frighteningly purple eyes, she was sure she saw nothing good at all. He’d been speaking over the first man in a bellicose manner, but he also fell silent as he rounded the corner and saw them

Everything seemed to slow down around them before anyone started to speak again. Once they did, Rose thought what she was hearing was nothing short of surreal.

“Inverno. Governor.” Expressionless, from Fahrar. 

“Machado.” The tall man, equally uninflected, ignoring Fahrar and staring past her. 

“Papa?” Rose didn’t recognize Machado’s voice at first. She looked back, and saw Nico, his face as grey as the shorter man’s. 

“Nico?” The little man, starting, staring hard at Machado, then shrinking back in some sort of delayed recognition. “Nico … oh, _Senhra’da Luz_ , I’m sorry, please don’t … don’t ….” 

The sirens wailed. 

“Guards.” The thin man, Inverno, (Now you know what he looks like, not that it does you any good) said it softly, and the three men standing to the rear of him reached for their holsters. 

“Run.” That was Jack. 

They did, back up the hall, Hilda dragging Nico with her and Jack hurrying Rose along, his arm keeping her head low as they dodged a first volley of stunner blasts. Salvha and Jao, the latter still half-carrying Filomena, almost collided with them at the door. Somehow, they managed to get it open. They shut it after them, then Salvha pulled another weapon, this one a gun, out from somewhere, and melted the lock with an unexpected heat beam. The door shook, and Rose could hear a gabble of angry voices behind it. 

“Not a stunner then,” Jack got out. 

“No,” Salvha said, then grinned, or at least Rose assumed it was a grin. Rose made to head back to the lift, only to be held back by Jack. “No. Follow her.” Rose looked at saw Fahrar pointing in the opposite direction. Over the screech of the siren, Rose heard her yell “Stairwell!” 

All of them clattered downstairs. Rose resisted the urge to look above for enemies; they’d come soon enough, and she knew that looking would just slow her down.

“This is totally fucked,” Jao huffed out. “Where the hell is your Doctor?”

“Morgue,” Rose managed. “Not dead.” 

“What? Why?”

“Don’t know,” Hilda said, “But I heard him say it, too.”

“You’re our guide —” 

“Two levels further,” Fahrar said before Jack could complete his sentence. “If he’s not there, we … figure our next move.” Then she looked at Nico. “You alright?” 

“He isn’t,” Hilda said, glaring. 

“ _He_ can speak for himself,” Nico said. “And he’s not going to. Here. Two levels down? That’s here.”

They walked into a hornets’ nest. Men and women ran past them from both directions. None of them looked at the group who’d come in from the stairwell, but that probably wouldn’t last, Rose thought. Any advantage they’d had with Fahrar had disappeared. In fact, the woman was a liability now; easily identifiable as someone wanted by the authorities from whom she’d separated herself. 

Sure enough, someone yelled “Wait … that’s them! There they are!”

“Shit!” Rose couldn’t tell who said that. 

“Pistol,” Filomena said, holding her hand out. Rose was surprised at how strong her voice sounded. She was even more surprised when Jao handed the little soldier one of the stunners. 

“You good?” he asked. 

For answer, she took out the man who’d seen them, knocking him off his feet. He slid on his back and his head hit the base of the wall, hard. 

“Real good,” she said, her grin as feral as Salvha’s. She changed her stance with the gun, winding up prone on the floor, resting on her elbows with the stunner’s haft wrapped firmly in both her hands. They only shook a little. 

“No, wait! Filomena … are you —” Rose’s face would have gone pale, had she not been flushed with exertion. 

Filomena shook her head, apparently seeing Rose’s fear in her face. “Not a last stand.” She smiled grimly at Rose, then looked at Salvha. “She called you ‘Vella. Stay here with me? Long enough to let them get their man?”

Salvha visibly twitched at the use of his dead wife’s pet name, but he nodded and crouched down next to Filomena, using his firearm to lethal effect. Rose twitched a bit herself. _This man is very dangerous_.

“Get going. Find the Doctor,” he said, without looking at her. “We — her and me — we’ll follow.”

“Go on, Rose. Don’t worry; we’ll get back together,” Filomena said. 

“Right.” Nico appeared to have recovered his balance. “Check the morgue, find him, let’s all meet up back—”

“ —we’ve got to get to the basement” Fahrar interrupted. “Different lift. Neves, you recall the second freight lift?”

“Got it.” Rose was glad he seemed to know what she was talking about. “We get separated, I’ll get everyone down there.”

“Morgue’s that way,” Filomena said, jerking her head to the left. _Of course she’d know that_ , Rose thought. She thought she might scream. 

She, Jack, and the four Lizhbauans hot-footed it in the direction Filomena had indicated, hurled themselves around a corner. Fahrar pointed. “There it is.”

Jao and Jack reached the double doors at the same time, slammed them open and nearly upended a pudgy young man dressed in what appeared to be hospital scrubs.

_“Sangre da Sen’hra!_ ”

Jack reached for him, brought him to his feet. “Sorry — you OK?”

“Yeah, but why the hell — my pardon, Tenante Fahrar, I didn’t see you. Are you with the Governor?”

Without missing a beat, Fahrar nodded crisply and said, “We’re checking on the xeno.”

“What?” The boy looked completely befuddled. “Isn’t this a fire drill?”

“When did they bring the alien in here?” Fahrar continued, moving up past Jack to tower over … Rose looked at the badge … Valentim. “It’s of utmost importance. Those sirens aren’t a fire drill; haven’t you been paying attention?”

Valentim now looked terrified. “Tenante, I don’t know anything about — I mean, no one has alerted me to an, an … alien? I swear, nothing’s come in or out of the department, not since that accountant fellow got caught in the drawer!”

_Wait. What?_ “What accountant fellow?” Rose pushed her way to the front, not caring that she definitely didn’t look official. “What did he look like?”

Valentim stared at her. 

“Answer the woman.” Jack’s voice was a whip.

“Uh … tall, thin man, not much hair, I think he left a leather jacket here — it’s over there on the desk — he wasn’t wearing any shoes—”

Rose and Jack turned to each other, but before they could say anything, they heard the hiss and keen of energy weapons discharging. 

“Tenante?” The young man eyed the door with dread. “What’s really going on?”

“Get out. Now. You, us. We’re under attack. We’ll take the back lift.” 

“Aliens?” Valentim’s voice cracked. 

“Why do you think I asked about the xeno, man? They’ve come to get him, and we need to get out, or some brave men will have died for nothing!”

Rose’s reluctant admiration for the rogue Maldad officer grew. She was cool as ice as she told the over-the-top whopper. _Of course she’d be_. 

“Sera Lumina …. This way, Tenante.”

The double doors slammed open again, this time because of Salvha, half dragging Filomena. He waved off Hilda’s half-step toward him. “Too many to stop; they’re coming.”

Valentim took off to the rear of the morgue, apparently assuming that everyone would follow him, or possibly not caring at all, just trying to get away from whatever was going to be coming through the doors next. Rose darted over to the desk Valemtim had pointed out, snatched up the jacket, then sprinted after him; so did Jack and Hilda, trailed by Jao and Nico. As the doors once more swung wide, soldiers tumbled through, then down, as Jao and Nico stunned them, or worse.

Everyone raced down a narrow back hall in the morgue — Rose saw metal examination tables with at least one shrouded figure out of the corner of her eye — but just as she was getting up yet one more head of steam, she ran into Jack, who had stopped cold. Rose saw why.

“I told you! I said they’d be after the xeno, and I was right!” The Governor of all of Lizhbau sounded like a child demanding praise in front of his nursery class. Then he shook himself, turned and glared at Inverno, who said nothing, just looked disgusted. “Why didn’t you — ”

No one ever got to hear the rest of his question; a stunner whined as someone behind Jack and Rose triggered it. The governor’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed, knocking Inverno over as he did. The next thing Rose heard was Jao, repeating what they’d heard from Jack only moments before: “Run!”

_It’s what I do best_ Rose thought, fighting yet another urge to giggle. She didn’t have the breath left to do that.

*** **** 

With two hallways between them and any Maldads, Jack risked turning around. Rose was there, breathing hard, with Jao, Fahrar, Hilda and Nico. Salvha came last, Filomena in his arms. 

"Good girl!" He pulled Rose to him, kissed her forehead. “Good everyone, but the rest of you don’t get kisses.” Then he cocked his head; the whines of beam weapons and stunners had fallen off completely. "No more firing; does that mean our pursuers have given up—"

"It means they're dead." Jao wasn't out of breath in the least. " I took out three —”

“Not including the governor, of course.” When he’d realized Jao had fired the stunner at Bohlver, Jack had checked Nico but found no change in the man’s expression. It was still agonized, but he’d let out no cry when his father had fallen, and he’d helped cover everyone’s retreat, using his own stunner. 

Jao scowled. “Stunner doesn’t count, Harkness. He’s out of bounds, you know that.” He waited a second and started again. “But I don’t expect much of a respite. You haven’t seen your man, yet?"

Rose shook her head.

“We can’t wait much longer,” Jao said. 

"Understood,” Jack said heavily, looking to Rose for her reaction. 

“We can still keep an eye out as we head back,” she said. “We know he was alive and moving. That’s good news, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She’d reminded him to hope. He turned to Fahrar. “Let’s head to that freight elevator you talked about." 

She nodded, took off, and they followed her. 

“It’s down here,” she said, pointing to one more corridor.

“This place is a damned warren,” Jack complained, but he headed in that direction. The hallway he reached was far less featureless than those in the upper levels. There were doors on the left, slightly inset; and on the right, a third.

No; the door on the right was the opening to yet another corridor. “Warren,” he repeated. “How does anyone ever get out of here?”

Just as he said that, Rose gasped and stumbled. 

"Rose?" Hilda caught her. "What's wrong?"

Rose shook her head, then held up a hand. "Shhh. Sorry, shhh."

Everyone stood silent, trying to hear whatever it was that Rose was hearing. Down here, the sirens were faint, making it a little easier to concentrate. Jack also tried to clear his mind as much as possible. Maybe she wasn't hearing anything outside her head ... he tried not to hope too hard.

Rose smiled, her face shining, and Jack's heart started pounding from something other than physical effort. "What's up?"

"He's close by, Jack, real close!"

"Where?" Jao was dividing his attention between Jack and Rose, and the hall behind them. 

“Down there,” Rose said over her shoulder, as she ran to the opening of the corridor ahead. “Doctor!”

“Rose?” The voice was rusty, ill-sounding, and it might have been the most beautiful thing Jack had heard in days. 

“Doctor!” Jack caught up with Rose. 

“Captain!” 

_That joy in his voice is for Rose, remember. Don’t get your hopes up_. 

The two of them almost collided with each other as they followed the voice.

And there he was sitting down on the floor, with his legs stretched out in front of him. He was barefoot, just as the morgue attendant had said. And he looked — Jack’s heart caught in his throat — like death warmed over. 

Rose slid to her knees, ending up beside the Doctor. Jack got to his other side.

“Rose … oh, Rose, you found me.” Then he looked at Jack and managed a smile that squeezed Jack’s heart. “Captain, I’m so glad you’re here. Can you forgive me?”

“Nothing to forgive,” Jack said, understanding the question on some level and more than happy to grant benediction. “Look, Doctor, can you get up? Can you walk?”

The Doctor started to struggle to his feet, but sank back to the floor. “Not by myself.”

“You’ve got us,” Rose said, “You lean on _us_ , Doctor.” 

The two of them hauled the Time Lord to his bare feet. Rose put his leather jacket over his shoulders.

“Oh … there it is,” their beloved burden said vaguely. Then he shook his head and looked woozily about at the people surrounding him. His gaze sharpened when he saw Fahrar. “Seems you made your choice.”

She nodded, her face unreadable. 

“Where to, then?” He turned away from her, turning first to Rose and then to Jack, his eyes greedy. They returned his gaze, neither of them willing to let him out of their sight.

Rose reached into the pocket of her jeans, and pulled out the screwdriver. Even before she spoke, Jack felt a buzzing in the back of his brain. He knew Rose must be feeling the same thing.

“Bring Her here, Doctor. She needs you as bad as we do.”

The Doctor swallowed, and almost laughed as Rose handed it to him. He didn’t ask her what she meant.

A moment and one quick screwdriver adjustment later, wind from somewhere else whipped through the hall. Rose and Jack laughed too, not caring that they were crying as they did so; the TARDIS, Her song suddenly there in their minds, materialized around them. 

“Home,” Jack whispered.

_tbc_


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which homecomings give way to leave-takings, and Rose says what has to be said.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this was the penultimate chapter, but have since realized it was not. Not quite. But soon, soon.  
>  **Edited by:** the irreplaceable **dr_whuh** , without whom none of this would be possible.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole property of the BBC and their respective creators. I take no coin or credit, but do thank the BBC for letting me play in their sandbox.  
> 

“Anyone want more tea? Sandwiches? I’m heading to the kitchen, and I’ve plenty of egg mayo left. Pickles, too.”

The look Nico gave Jack as he got ready to exit the library for the kitchen was priceless, but Jack kept his laughter to himself. That had been hard for the few hours they’d been back in the TARDIS. He wanted to laugh, to jump, to dance, to — _you are one crazy conman, Harkness._

_Yeah, and you don’t care.You really don’t, not today, not today, when everything is glorious._

“I’m still hungry,” Rose said. “I’ll go with you.” She was fighting her own smile, probably out of consideration for the Lizhbauans, all of whom were dealing with their impossible escape in different ways.

“Wait, Rose,” Hilda said, half rising from the settee she’d settled on. “Don’t—” Then she stopped and looked around her, at the tall wooden book-cases, and the parquet floor, up at the similarly patterned ceiling in the blue shadows above her, and took a shaky breath. “How much longer?”

Jao looked up from the book he was reading. Something on military strategy theory, Jack noted. _You’re the perfect maitre d’, darlin’._ The old soldier seemed to be handling the TARDIS well, probably because he could ignore it by focusing on one minute at a time, Jack thought. Soldiers did that. “It’s only been, what, little more than a standard hour. Relax.”

Hilda sat down, but didn’t look as if she’d be relaxing any time soon. Nor did Nico, although he was sprawled in what was normally the Doctor’s favorite chair, legs kicked out in a remarkably Doctor-like pose in front of the fireplace. 

Fahrar looked up from her own book, gave her inadvertent companions a visual once over, then went back to reading. She’d spent the first half hour after their escape obviously trying to figure out how best to get out of her impossible surroundings. After being informed that opening the doors was impossible, and that they were what was keeping her from being spread, atom by atom, into the Vortex, she’d decided to appropriate Jao’s attitude, nabbing something off the library shelf and reading. Jack was glad to hear nothing from her at this point. 

Salvha sat on the huge leather couch next to Nico’s chair. He’d been obsessively cleaning his rust-stained knives for the first half hour after he walked into the TARDIS. He’d put them away and now sat, head bent, with Filomena’s jacket bunched in his hands. 

Filomena herself was in one of the medlab’s isolation pods next to the one the Doctor had fallen into with Jack’s help, once he’d ensured that the young woman’s chamber had been programmed into a basic healing mode.

_Can’t heal her mind yet, Rose. Need to heal my own,_ the Doctor had said, one hand on Filomena’s head, and the other still clasping Rose’s hard tightly. _I’ll try then. This’ll keep her alive ‘til I can._

When Rose had asked how long he had to be in his pod, he’d shaken his head. Jack had assured Rose that the Doctor knew what he was doing with his own equipment, an assurance he definitely wouldn’t have felt had the TARDIS not been humming around them, had the Doctor not let go of Rose’s hand and reached for Jack’s, holding it hard enough to hurt. 

_Patience is a virtue, Rosie,_ he’d said, splitting his attention between her and the Doctor. _Practically the only virtue I’ll admit to_. She’d grinned at him, nodded at the Doctor and said, _If you can do it, I can. But don’t be too long, Doctor; we’ve already been too long apart, yeah?_

The Doctor had swallowed once or twice. _Yeah_. That was it, and he’d motioned to Jack to close the pod. But the look he gave them was bright with tears. Jack hadn’t been able to decipher that, but he’d had to fight his own tears, equally hard to decipher. He’d decided not to think about it at all until the Time Lord was back on his feet.

After they’d closed the pod, Rose took time to get a shower and change into some clean clothes — black jeans and shirt, an unusually sepulchral color scheme for her. Jack had resisted joking about it. After that, they’d played host to their guests. That included assuring them constantly that they could stay in the Vortex as subjectively long as needed before the Doctor could direct the TARDIS to any specific time they wanted. Both of them had carefully avoided mentioning the many times that She had overshot whatever mark he’d pointed Her at.

Rose had led Fahrar, Nico and Hilda on a quick tour of the most accessible corners of the TARDIS. In addition the bedrooms Nico and Hilda had seen before, Rose introduced them to the library and the homey kitchen, (much larger and even more comfortable than it usually was, she’d whispered to Jack.) The TARDIS had also cooperated in the public relations tour by making one of the Doctor’s laboratories available. Rose told Jack that Hilda had become visibly awestruck at that point. 

But there was only so much a guided tour could do to set someone’s mind at ease; Jack had gauged Rose’s expression when she’d brought the three Lizhbauans back to the control room, and had decreed that everyone should head to the library to await the Doctor’s return. The library had always seemed like a soothing retreat to him, and he’d discovered that Rose felt the same way. Perhaps, he’d thought, She’d let the room work some of its calmative influence on Her guests. 

For the most part, it had worked. Now, however, Salvha was barely able to contain himself — the hands holding Filomena’s jacket were white and trembling. Only Nico had been able to keep Salvha from bolting when he was introduced to the TARDIS in the first place. Jao might look as if he were calmly reading a book, and he might be the one admonishing Hilda to be calm, but Jack knew he, too, was laboring under the weight of too much that he’d never seen before. 

Hilda’s unease was at least tactical, Jack thought. It was her obsession over the damned worms. They were still at the underground lab; the plan, such as it was, had been to rescue the Doctor and then hope his genius and the TARDIS could get into Inverno’s labs and effect the switch, even if Filomena’s codes weren’t usable. Hilda wanted to get the miserable things into the TARDIS, show them to the mysterious alien that Jack (and the TARDIS) had convinced her could help change her world, and get the deed done. 

_I’ve been there. I know what it’s like when you need to move, and you can’t. Just a little longer, oh bartender who is so much more._ He looked at the assembled company, jerked his head to get Rose to come with him, and headed out of the library. “Back in a flash, folks.”

As they approached the kitchen, when Jack was certain they could speak without the words carrying, he turned to Rose. 

“Once we’ve fed them a few more sandwiches, I’m going to go back to the medlab, maybe see if there are any readouts I can understand. Maybe I’ll get a handle on when he’s due to wake— 

“You don’t have to, Captain. Here I am.”

The voice coming from the kitchen was still a little thready, but much stronger than they’d last heard it. 

Rose reached him first, but only by a hair. Both she and Jack threw their arms around the tall Gallifreyan, which almost knocked him out of the kitchen chair he was sitting on. 

“Whoah, whoah … careful. Still not up to snuff, me.” He didn’t sound too upset, but Jack and Rose gingerly unentangled themselves anyhow.

“Sorry Doctor.” Rose sounded embarrassed, at which Jack frowned. She didn’t need to — 

“Don’t be,” the Doctor said, smiling at her, then glancing at Jack with the same expression. “I liked it. From both of you. Just can’t deal with it physically yet. So give me time to let this cuppa do its work.” He nodded at the mug in front of him, which had narrowly escaped his and Rose’s hugs, Jack saw.

_He liked it. He liked it from both of us!_ If he hadn’t already been so damned glad he thought he might burst, Jack might have tried to kiss the Doctor … _Oh, that’d go over well. For the love of all that’s holy, smart boy, stop it!_

He tried not to look at the Doctor, irrationally certain that the latter knew exactly what he was thinking. To cover his embarrassment, he spoke. “Doc, you sure you shouldn’t be back in the pod?”

“She knew when to wake me up,” the Doctor said. “It was time.”

“Why? I mean, She knows best. I know that,” Rose said, looking around herself and talking to the air in a way she might not have done before they’d come to Lizhbau. "I guess I’m just … I dunno … afraid for you.” Then she grimaced a bit, before smiling and saying “But I imagine She’ll keep an eye on you, yeah? Let us know when we have to tuck you back into bed?”

Jack was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining the way the kitchen lights flickered slightly, turning a warmer gold. 

The Doctor eyed the ceiling fixtures and grinned. “You’re right, Rose Tyler. But we have work to do, Her and I.”

“The silk,” Jack said.

“Filomena,” Rose breathed.

The Doctor nodded. “Both. But your Filomena first, Rose.”

Of course the Doctor would care about the little silk-damaged soldier, Jack thought, loving him the more for it. He’d have cared about her even if she wasn’t potentially important to any plan for derailing the silk trade. 

“Do you think you can save her?” Rose asked the question as if she already knew the answer, and she didn’t like it. 

The Doctor reached for his mug and took a swallow, then put the mug back on the table. When he spoke, his mien was somber.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how Inverno used the silk on her, for one thing, but I can guess that it was a drastically more extreme process than what he used on me, and I almost …” he trailed off momentarily. “You saw how I was when you rescued me, and I’ve had training in how to deal with mental attacks. She’s human; she’s had someone else’s psyche forcibly planted inside her skull, which I saw for certain when I first programmed her pod has done a lot of physical damage to the brain. I can only guess at the psychological damage. In fact, her entire body’s obviously suffered as a result. That’s all … let’s just say it’s far worse than what happened to me.”

He stood up slowly, putting one hand on the table to steady himself. “I’ll try to save her. But I might not succeed. You understand that?”

Instead of arguing or insisting that the Doctor engineer a miracle, which Jack had heard Rose do more than once, she nodded. Jack could see unshed tears in her eyes, but they didn’t spill over. “If you can’t save her, can you at least make her more comfortable? For whatever time she has left?” 

Rose’s face above her dark clothing was pale as chalk. Her brown eyes were tired, the skin around them bruised with weariness; by rights she should be close to collapse. Jack knew she’d had precious little good sleep since this nightmare began; she’d told him about the awful night in the alley, the few hours in Luisa’s home. Despite her weariness, though, she wasn’t falling apart. She was exhibiting a strength, even in sorrow, that he hadn’t seen in her before. 

_I love you, Rose Tyler._ Jack felt the pride in this girl — this woman, he amended silently, this human, force-grown by horrifying circumstance into victorious maturity — fill his heart. He wanted to be worthy of her. And for the first time in ages, he thought he stood at least the ghost of a chance of doing so, if only because she seemed to think so. 

“We can make her comfortable, if it comes to that. I promise,” the Doctor said, looking down at her. Unsaid, but plain as the nose on his craggy face and the shine in his blue eyes, was his approval of Rose’s words. “Rest and surcease from pain. But let’s see if we can save her. Shall we go and talk to our guests? Ought to let them know what we’re planning, before we head back to the med lab.”

***************************

“Folks, this is the Doctor.”

Jack was going to say more, as he walked into the library ahead of the Time Lord, but he didn’t get the chance. That worthy brushed past him, and loped over to where Nico was sitting. As Nico looked up, the Doctor held out his hand. Nico raised an eyebrow, but extended his own.

“Welcome to the TARDIS, Nico Machado, son of Dehde Bohlver and palace revolutionary,” the Doctor said, grasping Nico’s hand and shaking it. Then he turned around. “And welcome, Jao Neves and Hilda Ghildau, his lieutenants.” His eyes narrowed initially as he looked at Salvha, but his expression gentled as he took note of the jacket Salvha still held close to himself. “Salvha Adao, too.”

He merely nodded at Fahrar, but Jack thought there was a certain respect in his wordless greeting. She nodded back. 

Jack, who’d whispered the Lizhbauans’ names to the Doctor as they headed toward the library, would have been impressed with the Doctor’s easy mastery of the room, had he not seen it happen at least a dozen times before. It was enjoyable to watch; he caught Rose’s eye, and she pursed her lips at him in a successful attempt not to smile.

“Hello,” Nico said. “What am I to call you, besides Doctor?” He was polite, curious. “I assume ‘Smith’ is not your real name.”

“Right. It’s not. Just Doctor. That’s it.” The Doctor sat down in the barrel chair across from where Nico sat. “I’m sure my companions told you that.”

Hilda, who looked as if a weight had been removed from her shoulders when the Time Lord walked in, shook her head. “The Captain hasn’t told us much, except that you’re supposed to be my equal in genetic manipulation. And that you can help us kill the lamia trade.”

“Your equal? I’m pretty sure I’m not your equal,” the Doctor said, with just the slightest hint of asperity. Jack would have welcomed it as a sign of the Doctor’s returning health, were it not for his own recently-renewed aversion to insulting new allies. He raised an eyebrow pointedly in the Gallifreyan’s direction. 

“ _Doctor._ ” Rose, who had chosen to perch herself rather uncomfortably on the tiny arm of his chair, glared at him.

He looked up at her, then over at Jack, and he smiled, all asperity gone. “No, I’m not belittling anyone. What I’m sayin' to Hilda is that I’m sure she knows more about silk than I do. That makes her my superior in the lab when we’re talking about lamia. 

“But that’s not why you need me, at least not immediately, so for now, let’s put that on the back burner.” He jumped up from the chair, and if he swayed just a little as he did so, only Rose and Jack noticed. “We’ll need to get into Inverno’s labs, am I right?”

“Correct,” Nico said. 

“And to do any good once we’re in, we need your friend’s codes,” the Doctor said. His smile disappeared, but he still looked gentle. “Let’s talk about her, shall we?”

“Is she alright?” That was Salvha, looking up from the jacket for the first time since Jack had returned to the library. Fahrar put her book aside, listening almost as intently as Salvha. 

“No. I’m going to try to save her, but you should all know that might not be possible. From what Rose, here, tells me, she was injected with huge amounts of lamia. Inverno may well have hit her with the silk in other ways, in order to force her neural pathways to accept the other girl’s psyche recording. 

“I don’t think any of you will be surprised when I say that the damage I saw on the readouts when we put her into the medipod is severe. I’m going back to the lab to try to program some repairs, but—”

“Is she going to die?” Salvha was doing the calm-demeanor-mad-eyes thing that had unnerved Jack back at the safe house. _You know she’s not your wife anymore, don’t you?_ Jack didn’t say it aloud, because he knew the answer; it was the reason Jack was very kind to children about Gray’s age. _Stop, don’t think about that_.

“The Doctor will do everything he can,” he told the little man. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything more.

“But she could die,” Nico said, looking at the Doctor as he spoke. “That is what I’m hearing, yes?”

The Doctor nodded. 

Nico sighed. Jack saw the weary grief in his eyes, knew the rebel leader had seen too much death already. Then he continued. “And — I do not mean to sound cold, but I must — we need to get the codes from her. If there is any possibility of doing so ....”

“Glad to hear you’ve got such sympathy for the girl,” the Doctor said, glowering. Jack winced. 

“Do not presume, Doctor,” Nico snapped. The Doctor blinked. Nico continued. “If I do not sound sufficiently sympathetic, it’s because I don’t have the time to mourn everyone that silk has killed. It has killed, and ruined, and become a nightmare that I want to stop. That is what I’ll try to do, with your help, if you are quite done sounding self righteous. 

“Incidentally,” he said. “One of the lives it has ruined is my father’s.” He stood silent and Hilda reached for his hand. He took it; Jack saw how tightly he held it, how Hilda put up with the painful grasp. Then he spoke again. “I will never be able to say goodbye to my father. What I saw with Inverno was … a shadow of who — of what — he once was. He was never a good man, but there was a time when he was, perhaps, open to salvation. He is no longer. And I cannot spare him any time, either. So you can help me, or you can lecture me.”

Jack held his breath. He caught Jao’s eye, but the old soldier just shrugged. He knew his leader wouldn’t give an inch. Hilda eyed her lover and did not let go of his hand. Jack risked a look at the Doctor. Would the Oncoming Storm break? 

To his relieved surprise, the Doctor grimaced. “I deserved that. Sorry.” 

“You did,” Nico agreed. “Apology accepted. And now, can you tell me if Sera Meireilles will be able to pass on her codes?”

“You might want to speak to her now. I can wake her for a little bit, but after that, I’m going to program some neural pathway repair into the pod’s reconstructive program. That means a deeper controlled coma than what I put her in when I was simply trying to physically improve her, and she won’t be accessible for awhile. I should know within an hour whether the reprogramming will help her,” the Time Lord said. “Neural repairs aren’t normally dangerous, but at the level she might need … well, they’re iffy.   
“If you need those codes — if _we_ need those codes — now is the time to speak with her. I can give you 10 minutes.” 

Salvha almost shot out of his seat. “I’ll talk to her.” As everyone stared at him, he frowned, and repeated himself. "I’ll talk to her. I’ll get the codes.   
"I want to be there for her,” he said, in a lower voice. “Let me do it, Nico.”

“I’ll go with him, Nico.” Hilda got up and reached over to touch Salvha’s shoulder, looking past him at Nico. “You don’t need to.”

“Nonsense; of course I’m coming.” Nico had stepped out of his momentary vulnerability, and was as controlled and brusque as Jack had ever seen him. 

“I’ll go, too,” Rose said. 

“Seems like everyone wants in on the action,” the Doctor said. He wasn’t smirking, or irritated, Jack saw. “Good thing there’s room for all of you.”

“Not me,” Jao said. “Don’t need me.” He went back to his book, with an intensity that dared anyone to change his mind.

To Jack’s surprise, Fahrar refused to come. He knew she’d felt some sort of responsibility for Meireilles, and he thought she would want to come to the lab. 

“No. I’m not needed there. You get what you can from Meireilles, but I … am satisfied that the Doctor will care for her.” 

_Well not everyone deals with things the same way._ Jack remembered people who wouldn’t step inside a hospital, even to see their dying kin, and chalked her response up to something similar.

Everyone else followed the Doctor to the medlab. Once inside, they clustered together, watching him from a slight distance as he stood over Filomena’s pod, long fingers dancing over the control panel as he opened the cover and temporarily brought her out of the pod-induced coma. But when he turned around to beckon them over, Jack saw deep concern in the Doctor’s blue eyes.

“She’s gonna be fragile. Don’t talk to her all at once; that’s a stressor. Choose one of you to ask her for the information, someone who can speak calmly, slowly, and clearly,” he said, one eye on the readouts, the other on the supine figure inside the pod. “And don’t take too long; she’s got to go back under as quickly as we can manage it.”

“Doctor?” Rose spoke softly, putting her hand on his arm. “Should we wake her at all?”

“We need to.” Nico was all business, but he, too, kept his voice low. “You said 10 minutes.”

The Doctor shrugged. “I looked at the readouts. I was wrong. You’ve got five, tops.” 

“It probably won’t take that long, frankly,” Nico allowed. “Can I suggest that Sera Tyler be the one to speak with her? She has spent the most time with her.”

“Nico —” Salvha stopped himself from saying anything more, but Rose seemed to understand. She held out a hand, and gestured wordlessly to the little man as she moved closer to the pod. He nodded to her, and took the two or three steps necessary to reach her side. 

For a moment, as Rose looked down on Filomena, a look of terror flashed across her face. Jack wondered if the girl had died. Before he could ask anything, he saw Filomena’s chest heave. He could almost feel Rose’s tension recede as the little soldier’s eyes fluttered open.

“Rose?” She struggled to rise.

Rose was leaning over the pod in an instant. “I’m here, shush, don’t try to get up. Stay down. The Doctor’s taking care of you.”

“I feel so much better!” Filomena insisted. “This is amazing! My head doesn’t hurt, Rose!” She tried again to sit up; this time Rose let her. 

Jack looked at the Doctor who saw him doing it. He was out of Filomena’s immediate sight, so he looked at Jack and shook his head. The others caught that. Jack saw Rose risk a side glance at the Time Lord. Her face shifted slightly, just enough that Jack knew she understood. _I’m sorry, love_  
.  
“That’s great, yeah?” she said brightly. “But the Doctor says you need to rest for a … a few more hours — no, really, he knows what he’s doing —” as Filomena started to object. “So don’t worry. It’s good that you’re feeling better; I’m so glad, Filomena! Just a little longer …” She stopped, took a breath. “We weren’t even going to wake you, but … well, we need the codes.”

“Why d’you need them now?” The woman was obviously suspicious.

“Ehrm ...” Rose trailed off. 

“You’re not going without me!” Jack could see how panicky the possibility made Filomena. “You promised me!”

“You’ll be in on the final assault,” Nico said, coming up behind Rose and Salvha. “You have my word.” 

_You could have been a conman_. Jack felt a certain amount of admiration. _Thanks for saving Rose from having to lie_.

“You’ll make sure?” Filomena wasn’t looking at either Rose or Nico. She was looking at Salvha, who turned briefly to Nico, then back to the girl in the pod.

“Yeah.” He said nothing more, but Filomena appeared to be satisfied. Why question whatever weird bond had formed between the two of them, when it was working to the group’s advantage, Jack thought.

“Alright. I memorized the codes, just like I was told to. If you’ve got a read-write, I’ll give them to you now.” 

Jack noted that Filomena was sweating, and he detected a tremor in the hand she reached out for read-write that the Doctor handed her. She kept talking as she wrote the codes down. “These are for the freezers where some of the eggs are. You can take them out quickly; I don’t think they’re as important as these ones, here, for his two stasis chambers—”

“He has stasis chambers?” Hilda sounded incredulous, and Jack wasn’t surprised. Stasis technology was part of First Empire science, but it was definitely inner core stuff, not something you’d expect to find on an outer colony planet. _Nothing but the best for your top drawer drug trade_.

“Only two,” Filomena said, before coughing weakly. “They’re really small, only big enough to hold the silkworm trays.”

“How many trays?” Hilda hunched her shoulders against the Doctor’s glare. 

Filomena shifted her gaze to Hilda, but apparently didn’t recognize her, and turned back. “Rose?”

“No, that’s a good question,” Rose said. “Do you know, Filomena?”

“Don’t know fr’sher … for sure,” The other woman said, starting to slur her words. “Think I heard Inverno tell one of the lab techs once. Think he said 120 trays to each chamber.”

_So few?_ Jack thought. _This entire silk industry is dependent on 240 trays of psychoactive caterpillars?_

“So many?” Hilda looked shocked. “We only have 150 trays’ worth of worms. Our intel was that he’d killed off most of what he forced the producers to bring him, to keep them under his thumb even more.”

Jack thought fast. “Do you have anything that can kill worms, anything that looks like a disease?”

“Yes, of course, there’s a fungus that does the job quickly. But we don’t want—” 

“Then you and the Doctor can grow that fungus here in one of our labs. Introduce that to all the trays in one chamber; use the worms you have to replace all the trays in the other chamber. My bet is that they’ll work so hard trying to figure out how the fungus got past them in the first place that they won’t do anything more than be thankful the second chamber of trays wasn’t affected.”

“Good, Captain.” Jack resisted preening when he heard the admiration in the Doctor’s voice. 

Filomena began to cough again, effectively stopping the conversation. 

“That’s it,” the Doctor said. “I’m putting her back under.”

Filomena, wiping her mouth on a handkerchief that Salvha had given her, turned to look at the Time Lord.

“You’re the Doctor. Thank you for saving me.” She looked uncomfortably close to worshipful. 

The Doctor sighed. “Not yet. Don’t thank me until I’ve fixed what they did to your head.” Then, more gently: “I’ll do everything I can.”

Filomena put one hand to her head, touching it as gingerly as one might touch a live cobra. Her eyes, which had been clear, slid into vacancy as Jack watched. “I … I’m sorry, what was I saying?”

Rose looked away quickly, wiping her eyes surreptitiously. 

“Hang on,” Salvha said. As Rose had done, he leaned over the pod. “Hang on. Please.”

Filomena let him take the hand she’d just put to her head. “I’m not her. You know that.”

“Yeah. But hold on. For her.”

“For myself.” Jack heard in her voice a bit of what Rose had told him was Filomena’s backbone, a bit of the military discipline he’d seen in the fight and flight from Central Command. Just a glimpse, though. She was actively shivering now, and her complexion, which had been ruddy with apparent health moments before, was now ashen. Her lips were almost as pale as the rest of her face.

Salvha looked like he wanted to frown, but only for a moment. “For yourself, yeah. But for her, too. So you can both get back at Inverno.” He said it with that gentle and completely frightening tone of his. 

Filomena laughed and Jack, only slightly surprised, thought that the two Lizhbauans were more alike than others might recognize. “OK, deal …” 

Abruptly, her face went blank, only to reshape into a grimace. She panted, then said, “ _Sera Lumina_ , my head’s hurting again —”

“Lie down,” Salvha told her. “Let this ... this Doctor … let him do what he needs to do.” He let go of her hand, giving it a quick kiss. 

Filomena weakly flapped the hand at him. “You’re a fool,” she said, in between pants. 

“I am,” he said, gruff. “But lie down.”

“Listen to your friend,” the Doctor said, even as he more or less politely shoved Salvha behind him, and nudged Rose away from the pod. 

Before he could say anything else, just as he started to help Filomena back into a prone position, she started to cough, a painful choking that too quickly evolved into a convulsion. The Doctor cursed — at least Jack thought it was a curse. It was in some language the TARDIS didn’t translate — and thrust his hand into the woman’s mouth, to grab for her tongue. Rose lunged forward, and Salvha was shouldered yet further from the action as she held Filomena’s head steady.

“Hold her up — don’t let her chew her tongue —” The Doctor handed Filomena off to Rose, and dashed to a wall control.

“What’s happening?” Nico started forward, but Hilda held him back.

“She’s dyin’, is what’s happening,” the Doctor barked, not taking his eyes off the wall panel as his fingers dashed across it. 

“No.” Salvha whispered it, stood stock-still. 

The Doctor muttered something, again in that language the TARDIS declined to translate, then ran back to the pod, this time keying in more changes on its control panel. “It’s not workin’”, he said. “We have to get the pod closed, or —”

He got no chance to say anything more. Filomena, eyes open, seeing nothing, arched up, her back grotesquely curved, her head dangling as Rose lost her grip. One more convulsion, and her head snapped up. For a split second, those eyes were alive. She looked at Rose; Jack thought she was trying to say something.

She fell back, dead. The slack thud as her torso hit the pod seemed very loud.

“No.” Rose’s denial was a lament. She pulled Filomena’s body up, cradled the woman’s head to her breast and cried. “Sorry, sorry ... I’m so sorry….”

The others watched her mourn, unsure of what to do next. Salvha backed away from the pod, finding his way blindly to his two resistance comrades. Hilda put her arm around him, but said nothing. Even the Doctor was motionless.

Jack felt the TARDIS in his head, a grief that wasn’t human, and his eyes filled with tears. He struggled to fight off his hopeless frustration. Everything since they’d come to this planet had gone wrong; every plan had skewed; every move had resulted in violence and loss, from the frightened victim of the Maldads at the bar, to the little soldier the Doctor couldn’t save. 

But he shook it off. If there was anything the Doctor and Rose had taught him, deliberately or coincidentally, it was that you didn’t give up. _Hell, man, you’ve known it since the morning you woke up without your memories and kept going anyway_.

As he calmed himself, Rose did the same, and carefully laid Filomena down in the pod, then turned to Nico and Hilda. “Did she have any family? She talked about an aunt, a father. Her mum was in the resistance, but I think she’s dead ... dead, too ....” 

“I don’t know. Jao might,” Hilda said. 

Rose nodded sharply, several times, looking around the medlab and wiping tears off her cheeks as if they were personally affronting her. She avoided looking at the Doctor. “Good.

“After we’ve taken down these bastards, we’ll find them.”

The Doctor, hearing the same danger in her voice that Jack did, looked up from the floor. “Rose …”

Now she looked at him. Jack thought the Gallifreyan should be very careful about his next words. “No, Doctor. This has to end. You … you just want to sneak into the lab and switch off trays of insects? Then what? You wait until they do something magic, take away the danger in what they spin? How long’s that gonna take, eh?” 

Rose’s voice rose only slightly, but it grew very sharp, and she advanced on the Doctor. “No. How many are gonna die while this takes hold? And didn’t you tell me this would throw this entire planet into chaos?

“Wouldn’t a real palace revolution, puttin’ someone decent in charge, and _then_ killin’ off the damned worms, replacin’ them with these new magic ones, be better? I mean, I don’t think much of kings and governors and such, but if you have them, wouldn’t it be better to get a good governor, someone who’ll do something once and for all? Go to war with the silk? Wouldn’t that be more honest?”

“Everyone’s been hidin’ in the shadows and doin’ things a bit at a time, blowin’ this or that up, or printin’ stupid pamphlets, or whatever it is they thought would change things on this planet, because they thought their precious Emperor would rather it be done quietly.” 

Now she was raging, and she turned that rage on Hilda and Nico. “It’s not gonna work fast enough. You, Nico — you saw your father. He’s dyin’. You saw that. He’ll be dead in weeks, if not days, because of the silk. Then that madman with him will have control — because there’s no one that the Emperor can name governor in his place, since you’re officially a rebel, yeah? Sure, he’ll name someone, but it’ll take time without a proper heir, am I right? And by the time he does, Inverno will have everything under control again. You won’t be able to get at the silk, not like you can now. This is your one chance.

“If you’re a rebel, act like a rebel. Bring this down! Save someone’s life today! Not next year, not next week, not when your damned insects are bloody butterflies — now!”

She scrubbed at her face again, unable to stop crying as she spoke. “Go, do what you have to. Talk to that commandant in the library. Make her help you. I’m … I’m going to lie down. Call me when you decide whatever the hell you want to do. This place is sick, and my heart is broken.”

She stalked past everyone, out of the medlab. 

The Doctor, his face as white as Filomena’s had been, looked once to the door, and then back at the Lizhbauans. “She has a point. Think about it.” He was out the door like a shot, following Rose. 

Nico looked as unnerved as Jack had ever seen him, surpassing the shock when he’d seen his own father. He swallowed, put a hand to the wall of the medlab. “I —”

“She’s right.” Salvha walked out of the lab. 

“Adao’s not thinking straight,” Nico started talking quickly, looking to Hilda for support. “And this Tyler woman knows nothing of what we’re … we can’t —”

“Sometimes you need new eyes to look at old problems,” Jack said. “Hilda?”

He couldn’t decipher what he saw on the older woman’s face. It had set like stone during Rose’s harangue. As she opened her mouth to speak, he wasn’t certain who she’d side with.

“I think we need a palace revolution. Nico, this has all happened for a reason. _Sera Lumina_ —”

“Not you, Hilda, don’t you start with the spiritual nonsense,” Nico made as if to continue, but Hilda held up a hand.

“Do not interrupt me.”

_Right, that’s the second dangerous woman heard from_. Jack held his breath yet again. 

“You call this nonsense?” she continued. “When we are inside something that cannot be explained? When these people have come to us just as our plans were set to fail or — maybe — succeed? If not _Sera Lumina_ , then the universe trying to cant back to the side of justice. Call it what you want to, Nico.” 

She stopped and sighed. “It has been too long. I side with Rose Tyler.”

“I —” This time, Nico stopped himself. “It would be too difficult.” But something in his face had changed.

Jack, remembering Nico’s and Jao’s discomfort at the thought of taking Bohlver out, said, very mildly, “Your father is dying. You will not have to kill him. As for the Emperor … well, I’ve always said it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.

“If we’re going to make this work at all, it needs to be total and complete change. You’ve been thinking strategically, good for you. But it’s time to change tactics to reach your strategic goal.”

“I —” Once again, Nico stopped. He bowed his head; Jack didn’t know whether it was in defeat, prayer, or submission to a higher power.

“We’re caught, aren’t we, love?” He reached his hand out to Hilda. “ I thought we could avoid — well, obviously there would be blood and sorrow, but I thought perhaps I could keep it to a minimum … I thought — never mind. I appear to have been wrong about a lot of things.” 

Nico Machado straightened his back. “Then let us make some final preparations and do as Sera Tyler suggested. Be honest, even if it kills us.”

Behind them, the cover of the medlab pod whispered as shut as any coffin cover over Filomena Meireilles.

_tbc_


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which even villains think they're patriots.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by** : the remarkable **editrx** , who helped me excise unnecessary verbiage and streamline the narrative - thanks! My beloved **dr_whuh,** without whom none of this would be possible, also edited.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole property of the BBC and their respective creators. I take no coin or credit, but do thank the BBC for letting me play in their sandbox.  
>  **Linguistic notes:** jornals=print media, newspapers, Lizhbauan social media, such as it is; tela’ovivos=live media; Filhotes das bruzshas=sons of witches; ralé=rabble; camponeses=peasants; patetas=fools; bestes=animals; Brigada d’Bombeiro=fire brigade; envenen’o sang=blood poisoner, another curse based on the blood/light religious imagery that’s rife in Lizhbauan neo-Portuguese.

“I don’t care what the Mordomo is asking. I do care what he is saying to the _jornals_ and what rubbish is getting out via the _tela’ovivos_ … no, the Governor fell ill during a policy meeting here and is under my personal care until he is well enough to return home … Of course I know it’s been two days, but that’s not the — what? Of course the information will be passed on to the Imperium. I ... we know our duty, and — excuse me? Excuse me?

“This is ridiculous. I have no more time for you. Good day, ser.”

Renhald Inverno slammed the receiver down, then clucked at himself in annoyance. Showing that kind of unrestrained emotion to these types was counter-productive. But really … he looked at the ceiling, then at the screens in front of him. 

He couldn’t stop the deluge of inbox queries. He’d fobbed off his explanation of Bohlver’s disappearance to the more credulous parliamentarians, but that only went so far, especially since the fool’s physical condition had deteriorated so quickly over the past month that even casual _vivos_ watchers could see it, no matter how his team had forced station managements to edit.

And _Sera Lumina_ , the damnable _jornals!_ He picked up one report from his people, eyed it with distaste, dropped it to pick up another, tried to read through the article, but threw it away from him with a growl.  
He’d had so much so well in hand mere days ago.

He went to the window. His office — this official one, at least, not the one where he could get any meaningful work done — looked out over the cliff of Gel’Colinas, down into the residential areas of Abela Fort’leza. He eyed noble enclaves and merchant villas, the comfortable and not so comfortable middle class neighborhoods below them, and the cramped tenements still farther below. In the middle distance he could see smoke from factory stacks by the river. Beyond that, the blue outer walls of the city and the elusive silver gleam of the space port. 

Seeing the port normally filled him with satisfaction. Today it was shrouded in a smoky caul altogether different from that of the factories. Crews were still trying to pull the hulks of burned out train cars away from the twisted metal of the bombed tracks.

_Filhotes das bruzshas, camponeses patetas, bestes —_

The phone rang again. He turned from the windows and stalked back to the desk. 

“What?” 

“Assistente, I’m sorry to bother you—”

“I doubt that,” Inverno said waspishly. On the other end of the line, he heard Gadelha suck in a breath before continuing. “There’s been another … incident, Assistente.”

 _Sangre._ “What, and where?”

“At the Rio Escuro wharves. One of the barges from Ribeiros just sank.”

“Sank, or was sunk?”

“Uh … they think she was scuttled.”

“This is a matter for —” He stopped. He’d been about to tell Gadelha to take it to Fahrar. “This is not a matter for me.”

“There’s no one else, Assistente.”

Inverno silently counted to ten. _This can be handled. You just have to be willing to delegate to the proper people._

But he wasn’t certain he could do that. Abela Fort’leza’s civil authorities were already stretched thin, reacting to the outbreaks of sabotage. Most were electronic: downed commercial-government communication nets, broken traffic systems, banking systems scorched. It was hitting everyone who had enough money to put in banks, and everyone who needed to travel, but it hit mercantiles, the ones his people had the most sway with, hardest. 

And of course, when businesses had to shut down, they sent their people home, and those types immediately took the streets in protest, he thought sourly.

Then the fires and explosions started, largely in non-residential areas. The main tourist market, the one the rebels called the Memory Market, had been torched just last night. It was the oddest thing, the commander of the Brigada d’Bombeiro had said during his very brief visit; there were no protests when it went up, despite the loss. 

The look the commander gave him had been measured. Inverno, knowing what he did of Bohlver’s most recent efforts at “policing” in that area, had said nothing, simply massaged his temples and ended the meeting with a terse, “Send your report to the city and regional authorities. They handle these things.” 

Remembering the conversation just brought back his headache. Inverno had no respect for his municipal and state counterparts, but it infuriated him when he knew they had no respect for him. 

Those in the industry were still well in hand, he thought. Over the last three days he’d quashed the two or three flickers of rebellion he’d spotted in the messages of his larger producers. 

He couldn’t blame them; he had their breeding stock. Certainly they’d never wanted to give it to him, and certainly some of them had hidden some worms, but not enough to save anyone but themselves should the central stock disappear. So word that the capital was in the throes of something he still refused to call open rebellion had given some producers ideas. He’d dealt swiftly with that, sending some of his military people to their farms, and the ideas subsided. 

But working with the regular regional authorities or Parliament? Ridiculous. He couldn’t work with any of them. 

He snorted, then scowled. _Nor they with you_. It wasn’t his fault, he reminded himself yet again. If he’d had cooperation from others, he could have held Bohlver’s position a decade earlier; the Emperor could have been persuaded. 

But so few backed him publicly. They wouldn’t say what they were willing to admit in the privacy of home or office, or in the clubs Inverno used to experiment with silk: that the industry he kept going — sometimes, it seemed, through sheer willpower, he thought bitterly — kept Lizhbau alive. 

_What else is there here_ , he thought. _Our fields feed the planet, nothing more. Tourism helps, but not enough, since we’re too far from the Empire’s center. I do what must be done. Humans sin and always will. I simply provide them something for which they pay handsomely. And what they pay supports this world_.

As for the governor? Inverno’s unease flared into angry worry. The man was now fully in the throes of lamia poisoning, and Inverno was uncertain whether brain damage from the unceasing hallucinations or wholescale organ failure might kill him first. Damn that rebel for his shot ….

The phone rang again. He cursed, but answered it. 

“Renhald Inverno.”

Inverno stiffened. He knew that voice. “What are you doing on my line?”

“Callin’ you up, should be obvious.”

“Where are you? How did you get out of the morgue?”

“That would be telling, now, wouldn’t it? But I’m coming for you. Comin’ for all of you. Unless you want to come meet with me.”

He tried to signal his secretary with the desk button set up for that purpose, but the fool had apparently left the outer office, so there was no one available to try to track the call. “Why should I do that?”

“You’ve had your hands full these last few days, I hear. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella.”

The satisfaction in the alien’s voice … Inverno tightened his grip on the handset, his knuckles white. Of course. _Xeno bastard, you’ve roused them. Ralé, camponeses_ — “Do I have you to thank for all this … commotion?”

“Me? No, not really. Couple of my friends, maybe. Even then, they’re more like cheerleaders for some of your usual suspects, at least some of who you met at Central Command, I’m told. 

“More likely, though, you have you to thank for all of this.” The xeno’s voice, until then full of resoundingly false bonhomie, went cold. Inverno knew the trick; he’d used it countless times. It was uncomfortable to have the tables turned. “So I suggest you make your way over to your labs. Say, in about a standard hour or so.”

The labs — 

Could this day get any worse?

Once again, he forced himself to be calm. “Shall I bring some of my staff?” He thought he brought that off rather well, given the circumstances. Where in hell was his damnable secretary? He pressed the other button, the one meant to call for military staff.

“If by that you mean a bunch of your bully-boys, I wouldn’t advise it. Too many people in here are apt to jostle things. Break them, even.”

“I can be there within minutes.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can. But I wouldn’t advise it.”

What can I believe? Inverno tried to think two steps ahead, as he was used to doing, but couldn’t get his thoughts in order.

“You’re bluffing.” He looked through the door. Someone should have answered the second button almost immediately — 

“Bluffing? Oh, not even close. I wouldn’t be invitin’ you over to the lab if I didn’t know exactly what I could find there, and where I could find it. Not to mention — although I am mentioning it — I know how to get to it.”

“You’re—”

“You’re not gonna say I’m bluffing again, are you? I expect better than that from you, Mr. Assistant to the Governor. By the way — how is the man you addicted to silk doing?” 

_I will find this … creature, and I will kill him_ , Inverno thought.

“You’ll kill me? Oh, that’s just bog-standard villain talk there, Renhald-me-lad. But I’ll remember you said it.”

Too late, he realized he’d spoken aloud. He tried to recover, aware that he sounded as stiff as cardboard. “The Governor is recovering from an illness.”

“That’s what you call a drug-engendered neurological crisis exacerbated by stunner fire, is it?”

Inverno said nothing. Spies, moles, informants everywhere … and still no answer to the alarms he’d tried to trigger. He abruptly envisioned a new and disturbing alternative explanation for his missing secretary and the mysteriously absent security officers. _Sangre_ ….

Time to change tactics. 

“What guarantee do I have that I won’t be harmed if I come to the labs alone?” He didn’t really think the xeno would be stupid enough to attack him, but he couldn’t be as sure about any of the rebels with whom the alien had clearly thrown in. 

“You don’t have to worry about me,” the alien said. “But I can’t say the same about anyone else here. You’re just gonna have to trust me and keep to the schedule.”

Inverno thought about Nico Machado. His suspicions about the recent rash of sabotage and small-scale rebel successes seemed to have been proven true; Machado was the efficient organizer the opposition had needed, and of course he was someone with more knowledge of how the Upper Hill operated than most of its previous leaders. That it was Bohlver’s son, unaccountably and infuriatingly sprung from prison, was the only logical assumption. 

_We should have killed him._ But the governor had been more in command of himself then, not yet completely dependent on the lamia, and still absurdly attached in some fashion to his offspring. Inverno had had to be more careful about suggestions at that point, and demonizing the boy, rendering him an object of contempt, had seemed a reasonable alternative ….

“Still with me?”

Inverno brought himself back to the current situation. “Yes.”

“Well?”

He had to go to the xeno, he realized, his fury mounting. He needed to find out how far into the labs his opponents had gotten. He’d changed the codes to the storage and stasis chambers of course, the moment he’d been free from seeing to the Governor in the infirmary, but the fact that these people had made it through to the labs at all meant he couldn’t take anything for granted. 

“I’ll come.”

“Alone.”

Inverno looked to his outer office, still distressingly quiet and free of responding secretaries or security officers. “If I must.” 

He had no intention of going without protection, though. He looked at the clock on his desk, thought a moment, then smiled. 

********* ******* ***********

“Found him!”

Jack’s crow of success brought Nico and Jao to where he was sitting in the TARDIS’ secondary control room. The Doctor had relegated planetary system searches to Jack, while he and Hilda put their heads together in one of the TARDIS labs, reviewing her work with the detoxified silkworms, and Jack had declared this location his own for that purpose. 

Rose had taken it upon herself to be a liaison between each group of people now in the TARDIS, from a shell-shocked Pau Sampaio, who’d been plucked from the safe house a day or so earlier, to Salvha, who still hadn’t recovered from the shock of Filomena’s death. 

Right now, she was with Hilda, for which Jack was grateful. Hilda was giving both Salvha and Rose as much quiet succor as she could in the aftermath of that loss. With Hilda around, he and the Doctor could give Rose her space — something it had been clear she needed — knowing someone was there to comfort her. There was no question she needed that support. Jack understood. He’d been shaken by Filomena’s death; he could only imagine what Rose felt like. 

Jack was thus free to spend the last two hours reformatting his search algorithms. Even after he’d done so, he hadn’t been certain that his efforts would bear fruit, so he was especially pleased when he found the right life signs. 

“You located my — the Governor?”

“With the bio data you were able to provide, yes,” Jack said. “You were right about him still being at Central Command, but now I’ve got his exact location. He’s on the same level as the labs. We can go in and get him out of Inverno’s hands.”

Silence made Jack look up from the screen. He eyed Nico. “If that’s really what you want to do.”

“I wouldn’t have asked that we try to find him, if I weren’t interested in making him a … a bargaining chip,” Nico said. His averted gaze belied the businesslike tone. 

“Well, the Doctor wants him brought to the med lab as soon as we can extricate him,” Jack said. “We can check his condition, maybe help him —”

“I’m less interested in that than his strategic value,” Nico said harshly. 

_Sure you are, pal_. “Keeping him alive makes him more valuable. Detoxing him does the same,” Jack said, keeping his tone just north of nonchalant. “Let’s get him here before we talk about anything else.”

Jao, who’d said nothing since the end of the last strategy session, spoke up now. “Will we have to shoot our way in and out, like we did the first time?”  
“No.” 

The three men looked up, startled, as the Doctor entered the room. “We’re going to have Inverno here. I imagine that’ll calm the shooting a bit.”

“What do you mean, we’ll have him here? That wasn’t part of the plan,” Jao said. He sounded suspicious, as he had about everything the Doctor said.

“You’ve seen the results of a week of destabilization efforts,” the Doctor said. “You’ve caused much of the destabilization, and done a fantastic job of it. By the time I called Inverno—”

“— You _what?_ ” from Jack. “Doc — Jao’s right, we had a plan —” 

“— What?” from Nico. “Are you mad?”

The Doctor was unruffled. “Yes, I called him. By the time I did it — about an hour ago, once I’d finished setting the TARDIS coordinates with the codes Filomena gave us — I’m guessin’ he couldn’t summon too many henchmen to his side. The last word you got was that there were wholesale desertions, right?”

Jao shrugged, unable to deny what the Doctor said. He and Nico had sent word out to all their cells to put the pressure on targeted police and military, any of the Maldads who had a spark of conscience or an inch of spine. They’d specifically chosen officers Jao had designated as optimum targets, but got the word out to the rank and file as well, particularly among the military, since they were the ones Inverno was using to control Abela Fort’leza.

It had taken about 30 hours to start the cascade of defections, folks slipping away with as little noise as possible. That in turn cleared the decks for more sabotage, and the cycle escalated in a quite satisfactory fashion. 

Jao responded, less hostile now, but still wary. “Not everyone’s deserted.”

Nico wasn’t wary or hostile, but he did sound tired. “Doctor, you can’t change things without telling us.”

“Tellin’ you now, aren’t I?”

Jack stood up, making it a smooth motion that put him between the two men. They were far too much alike, Jack thought. “Fill us in more.” He looked the Doctor in the eye, fighting his urge to smile at the other man and forcing his face into a semblance of disapproval for the Time Lord’s usual cavalier modus operandi. 

To his relief, the Doctor nodded slightly, then turned back to Nico. “I don’t mean to be takin’ this over from you, Machado. That’s not my style. This is your planet, your city, your fight. Your father, too, I know. Gettin’ him back is important to me. Maybe for different reasons than it is for you — ” His shrewd gaze was surprisingly kind. “ — but we both want him out of the grasp of the man that —” 

“Yes, well, thank you.” Nico nodded tightly, but said nothing more. The Doctor sighed slightly. 

“And I wasn’t deliberately hidin’ things from you, either,” he continued. He spoke as he moved past Jack and rounded the small console area to look at another screen for a moment. “I didn’t complete the TARDIS’ programming, even with Her ready cooperation, until just before I called Inverno. And —” he cocked an ear and started smiling even as Jack felt the TARDIS move in his mind “ — She’s headin’ us right to Inverno’s lab now. Where he’s meetin’ us, no doubt with weapons and bad intentions.”

Jack stiffened, and saw Jao and Nico do the same. The Time Lord chucked a thumb in the direction of the main console room. “Care to join me?”

“Mother of worlds, Doc —” Jack grabbed for his holster, and he saw the other two do the same. 

The Doctor frowned. “You’re not going to —”

“ — You spring a surprise like this on me, you don’t get to tell me what ordnance I carry.”

The Doctor glowered. “My TARDIS —” 

“Relax, Doc. It’s a stunner. I don’t kill unless I have to.” 

The Doctor relaxed slightly. “Fair enough. And don’t call me Doc.”

“Sure thing, Doc.”

That was the end of any talk. All of them ran, full-tilt, down a corridor that Jack knew was much shorter now than it had been when he’d entered the secondary control room. The green, gold, and orange of the main control hove into sight; Jack saw Hilda and Rose waiting for them. 

“Doctor, the rotor’s moving. Is that you, or Her?” Rose looked at her watch. “I thought the mission wasn’t to start for hours.”

“Apparently, that’s no longer the case,” Nico said. “And, again apparently, we are en route to the lab.” 

Hilda looked at him. She didn’t question the change, just asked, “Your — the Governor. How close is he to the lab?”

“Same level,” Jack said. “There’s some sort of hospital section right next to where Inverno does his work.” He left unsaid what needing an infirmary next to a silk lab meant. 

“Well, there you go,” the Doctor said. Jack suspected he’d stopped himself from rubbing his hands, which would have been altogether too cheery for the rest of the room.

“Once we have Inverno here, I guarantee you I can get all the information we need to convince your Emperor to name a new governor, bring Inverno and others to trial and, finally, end this filthy trade. Without usin’ any chemical coercion, I might add,” he continued. “And with the help I’ve given Hilda, who didn’t need that much to begin with, mind you, the new genegineered silk worms will double their output of silk, and it will all be psychoactively inert.

“Then, just to make things a little busier for any of Inverno’s goons who stayed loyal, I took the liberty of scramblin’ off-planet communications, which should prove to attract the attention of off-planet authorities. The goons will have more than us to worry about in, oh, however long it takes the nearest Imperials to investigate Lizhbau’s sudden radio silence.”

“ _Sera Lumina_ , you don’t do anything by half, do you?” It was clear from Nico’s face that he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to throttle the Doctor. 

Fahrar arrived, presumably from the library, but said nothing. The woman had become positively mute since Filomena’s death. Jack wondered briefly what she would look like were she ever to lose control of herself, before turning back to the conversation at hand.

“So here we are. What now?” Nico asked. He caught the Doctor’s eyes and held them. 

The Doctor smiled manically, and Jack’s tension ratcheted up. He knew an “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’ll figure it out, I think” look when he saw it. He raised his eyebrow.

In return, the Doctor smiled even more broadly. “You say that sidearm of yours is a stunner?”

Jack nodded, waiting. 

“Well, here’s the thing. I don’t usually approve of weaponry, but Rose has convinced me we need to move fast.”

“Got that impression, yeah,” Jack said, his gaze darting between the Doctor, Nico, Rose, who’d assumed a rather feral grin when the Doctor mentioned her name, and the TARDIS door. “And?”

“When we open that door, there will be people on the other side who aim to do us harm, to take me prisoner again, and probably worse for the rest of you. Take a look on the screen next to the red lever, Hilda, Rose. Am I right?”

“We’re not where we were,” Hilda said a moment later. She was clearly still unused to TARDIS travel, but she managed to sound matter of fact. “It’s a laboratory. Men just ran into the room —”

“They heard us arriving,” the Doctor said. “She’s not shy about Her entrances. They’ve got weapons, right?”

Rose was right next to Hilda, peering into the screen. “On the nose, Doctor. About seven of them, it looks like.”

“So much for him being unprotected,” Jao said heavily, with a dark look at the Doctor.

“That’s why I normally like landin’ us in out of the way corridors,” the Doctor responded. “But today, we’re not doing things slowly. And seven men? Hardly an army, is it? Jack, when the door opens, I want you to take out all the minions. Put ‘em to sleep. If one of you others have a stunner, stand with the Captain and make faster work of it. If I’m right, which I often am, Inverno will come in when the last man hits the floor.”

Jao looked at Nico, who looked at the ceiling briefly. “And then what? We stun Inverno and drag his carcass in here?”

“Precisely!” The Doctor grinned. 

“ _This_ is your plan?” Nico was aghast. 

The Doctor stopped grinning. “It is. Slicin’ the Gordian knot.”

“The what?” Nico looked blank. 

“Never mind.”

“Give me a stunner.” 

They’d all forgotten Salvha, who had been standing very quietly behind the console room guard rail near Fahrar. He hurried to Nico’s side and continued. “I’m the best shot here.” Jack didn’t bother to contradict him. On the viewscreen he could now see that there were enough Maldads in the lab now, all of them looking confusedly at the little blue cubicle they’d rushed in to attack, that he welcomed a helping hand.

“Join Jack at the door,” the Doctor said. “Jao?”

The latter handed his stunner to Salvha, then looked around the console room at everyone else. “This had better work.”

“Agreed,” Jack said, with one last glance at the Doctor. “All right, Salvha. On three.”

The minute and a half of ensuing confusion ended as the Doctor had predicted. All the Maldads were down, probably for the next few minutes. But there was no sign of Inverno. 

“Doctor?” Nico’s lowering gaze was all too easy to interpret. 

“Patience,” the Time Lord said.

 _Doctor, you can’t counsel haste one minute and patience the next_. Jack kept the thought to himself. “Rose!”

“Jack?”

“Rope, line, handcuffs — anything we can use to immobilize seven men … no, eight. Anything She can provide or that you can find on your own.”

“Gotcha.” He turned back toward the lab and heard the muffled sound of her trainers running from the console room.

Almost before that sound died, he heard something else: a squeak and clatter that resolved into what he realized was the sound of a gurney being wheeled closer and closer to where the TARDIS stood. 

When Inverno maneuvered the gurney through the door of the lab, its bulk between him and the TARDIS, Jack wasn’t surprised. Nor was he surprised at the identity of its unconscious passenger. Dehde Bohlver was breathing stertorously, his head twitching minutely back and forth, his lips moving in words Jack couldn’t make out. 

“Can I ask you not to stun me?” Inverno said that as pleasantly as if he’d asked someone to hand him a cup of tea. 

“Told you he’d come,” the Doctor said, edging his way past Jack and Salvha through the TARDIS doors. “Wasn’t expecting your sidekick, I’ll admit.” He stepped over the collapsed Maldads to stand at the foot of the gurney. “He doesn’t look well at all.”

Inverno looked down at Bohlver. “This was the fault of one of your compatriots. Whoever stunned him.”

Jack couldn’t help himself. “Not the lamia you introduced him to, of course.”

“Jack.” The Doctor’s tone warned him, and he fell silent. 

“Thank you,” Inverno said, still managing to sound as if he was having a completely normal conversation. “I appreciate civil conversation, not childish insults.”

“Don’t. Push me.” Jack didn’t care what the Doctor said. His abrupt rage turned the edges of his vision red. 

Rose came up behind him and touched his shoulder. “Hold on, Jack. Just a little longer.”

The red haze receded. Jack trusted himself to give a quick nod. 

The Doctor sounded very gentle as he said, “I suggest that you say absolutely nothing that can make my colleague decide not to listen to me. I might not be able to stop him from beating you senseless.”

Inverno stepped back. “You need to control your people.”

At that, the Doctor laughed. “It was a lot easier to control yours.”

Behind him, Rose was securing the unconscious Maldads, helped by Jao. Jack heard Jao whisper to her, as she handed him another pair of plastic cuffs: “Where’d you get so many of these?”

“Fahrar,” Rose whispered back, as she unceremoniously rolled over the last soldier and grabbed his wrists. “She keeps being useful.”

Inverno heard Fahrar’s name and scowled. The Doctor noticed. 

“Yup. She’s with us, now. And you have yourself to blame for that.”

Jack could see Inverno struggle to maintain his facade. “Enough. I came alone, and unarmed, just as you asked. I brought the Governor here, because he needs care, and all of my staff appear to have left him unattended. I offer him to you and to your —” he looked over at the TARDIS, obviously confused at the size before his eyes widened upon catching a glimpse of the cavernous interior “ — your … craft?”

“The TARDIS.” The Doctor crossed his arms and grinned. “Wanna see the inside? Actually, don’t answer. You’re going to. Jack?”

Inverno saw Jack raise the stunner and threw up one hand in a reflexive motion. “Don’t! Not … not until you hear my offer.”

Jack looked to the Doctor, who nodded slightly. “I’m listenin’.” 

“I know when I’m beaten,” Inverno said, very slightly breathlessly. “I congratulate you on turning the city into complete chaos in less than a standard week. I assume that’s thanks to Macha- the Governor's son,” he said, looking beyond the Doctor. Jack looked behind him and saw Nico’s expression. “Of course that’s not important,” Inverno said hurriedly. “The situation is beyond my control, and I recognize that. Just before I came down here, I heard news from Parliament. The members have introduced motions asking the Emperor to remove the Governor and to investigate my role in the silk economy.”

Of course he’d call it an economy, not the drug trade, Jack thought. _Equivocation and double-talk, basic bad guy tools. And they almost always end up believing themselves_. He waited. 

“I also understand that the off-world communications grid has gone down, which will bring the attention of the Empire here even more quickly than Parliament’s activities.”

“Told you that, too!” The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Rose, Jack, and the others clustered near the door. He was grinning humorlessly. 

“Ah. Again, you’re to be congratulated on your planning,” Inverno said, his expression sour. “I — is there somewhere more comfortable we can speak, perhaps somewhere in your ship that we can take the Governor?”

“First, tell me what you want from me,” the Doctor said. 

“I want you to get me off planet.”

Jack heard a muffled curse behind him, but didn’t turn to see who it might have been from. 

“And take you where?” the Doctor asked. 

“Any inner core system. I’m confident you can do something of that sort. You’re xeno, with —” his eyes slid back to the open door of the TARDIS “ — technology that appears to be far in advance of what we have.”

“That’s it, then, nothing complicated, just … let you go.” 

Jack heard the Doctor’s tone. So did the man in front of him. To Jack’s surprise, he responded in the same tone.

“It’s perhaps a little more complicated than that. I’ve taken the time since your call to made some some … adjustments … to the Governor’s metabolism. I won’t bore you with the medical details, but the changes are such that —”

“He’ll die without you around to help undo the adjustments.” 

The Doctor looked grim and Jack’s heart sank. He’d been worried ever since Rose had unleashed herself on them following Filomena’s death, wondering if her rage would wash everyone forward like a wave and then swamp everyone in some sort of undertow. 

That the Doctor had allowed Inverno the time to do anything after calling him — _calling_ him, for the love of all that’s holy, something the most wet behind the ears agent wouldn’t do — was horribly telling. He was emotionally compromised, Jack knew. 

And he wasn’t the only one. The three of them, Rose, Jack and the Doctor, were so emotionally connected right now that Jack himself had been carried along in the rush to bring lamia silk to judgement. 

_Well, we’re on the horse, best ride it to the end of the road_. Jack forced his attention back to Inverno, who was talking. 

“You are correct. But I’m a man of my word, and I swear to you that, once you have let me off at a world I deem satisfactory, I can reverse those adjustments. In fact, I can do so in your craft, while you watch. The reversal won’t take hold until after I am safely away, but it will happen, and the man will be … perhaps not healthy, but alive.”

“Doctor, can he do that?” Rose, once again, sounded as if she knew the answer and wouldn’t like it. 

“I’ve no doubt he could if the patient were a little less compromised to begin with. After all, he’s a medical researcher,” the Doctor said, his voice dripping with contempt. “But the patient’s a tad more than compromised.”

Inverno bristled. “I can reverse what I’ve done. I can’t reverse what he has done to himself.” 

Nico strode past Jack, knocking him to one side in his rush at Inverno, neatly evading the Doctor and skirting the gurney on which his father lay. Inverno stepped back, but not far enough. The younger man grabbed him by the shiny buttons on his uniform jacket; one popped off and flew in a neat arc onto the gurney. 

“You will do exactly as you’ve said, _envenen’o sang_ ,” he snarled, a sound Jack would not have thought he was capable of. “Or the next time I go to prison, or to a mind-wipe, I will deserve it; I’ll kill you, and I will put my father out of his misery.” 

Nico’s face was livid, his lips as white as paper. Inverno, on the other hand, was purpling; Nico had found someone other than the Doctor to throttle.  
Jao and Hilda were on him in an instant, pulling him off Inverno. Hilda grabbed his head and forced him to look at her. “No, Nico!”

Seeing Hilda seemed to bring her lover back to his senses; he dropped Inverno, looking at his own hands disbelievingly.

“Jack, Jao … get the gurney inside,” the Doctor said. “ I’ll take this one.” To Jack’s delight, the Doctor scruffed Inverno, then frog-marched him into the TARDIS. “Let’s see what he can do before we hear from the Emperor, shall we?”

 _Maybe, just maybe, we’ll pull this off_ , Jack thought. 

tbc


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which both Rose and Inverno are comforted, then discomfited, at different times and for different reasons.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Edited by:** My Best Beloved, **dr_whuh**. You are the best, my dear!  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole property of the BBC and their respective creators. I take no coin or credit, and I thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

_ In the moments after Filomena dies _

_You stupid cow … you stupid little girl …._

Rose sat in her bedroom, berating herself for her outburst and pondering the puzzle of why in the world — this one or any other — she thought a centuries old alien should even have to listen to her. Barely two decades old — what kind of idiot was she?

She’d stalked down the corridor toward her bedroom, disregarding the tug in the back of her mind, knowing it was the TARDIS trying to route her back to the medlab. 

“I can’t,” she’d said aloud. “Not now.” She’d broken into a run, suddenly nauseated with the anger and sorrow and desperate to make it to her room before it overtook her in the hall. 

_Now you’re here. Now what? Idiot …._

In the quiet of her room, she tried to get herself under control. She thought she’d managed it, only to remember the boneless way Filomena’s body had slapped back down into the medi-pod, and she fell onto her bed and cried again, wondering where the tears had come from. She thought she’d cried herself dry. Again. And again she was wrong. 

She wiped her eyes and her nose, and rolled over to look at the ceiling. “Ever since we came here,  I’ve done nothing but cry or throw up, or both ….”

The self-doubt that she’d more or less successfully kept at bay for the last day or so bubbled up like swamp gas. She thought about what she’d said — yelled, really — at everyone back in the medlab, and felt her face go hot. Yelling at the head of a planet’s revolution? At Jack, who’d gotten them out of the jail complex, who’d never given up on her? At the Doctor?

_Foolish, stupid, selfish … always making scenes, always being a drama queen._ _You think it’s about you? It should never be about you. …._  

( _No._ )

Rose jerked her head up off her pillow. She knew she hadn’t actually heard the word; her brain had interpreted something more direct than words as a word. 

She blinked away the last of her tears. Of course it was Her, Rose thought, not even surprised at how accustomed she’d become to communication with the TARDIS. She wasn’t going to give up just because Rose had pushed Her away in the corridor. “I really can’t go back —”

( _No._ _Remember._ )

Remember what? Rose didn’t move, wondering if she could pick up some clue from the air around her. 

( _Remember you. Your heart.)_

She almost forgot the words as they came to her, probably because they’d never been words in the first place, but she hung on to them. 

Her own heart?

Then the memories came.  

She remembered Mum scolding her after she’d smashed a picture book down on Alun McQuorter’s head in primary school. She’d been furious at him; not only had he told her she wasn’t his girlfriend anymore after she told him he was a bully, he’d proved she was right by pushing Eleanor down the stairs for being in his way. She remembered telling Mum why she’d done it, and Mum laying into the head teacher: “My Rose did the right thing and you — you ought to be ashamed of yourself, letting that big boy hurt a little girl!”

She remembered taking care of Shireen when her friend had knocked on Mum’s door, eye blacked from what Shireen insisted was a door she’d walked into. She remembered going down to the station to report Shireen’s dad. She’d been 15 and almost blind with rage. 

She remembered screaming at Jimmy after he’d laid a hand on Mum, when Jackie came to get her, to bring her home. She hadn’t intended to leave with her mother. She’d been too embarrassed, too ashamed to admit her mother had been right. And she’d become a little too afraid of what Jimmy might do if she tried to leave. Until Jimmy, almost knee-walking drunk, called Mum a proper slag, tried to grab one of her breasts, and Rose had lost it, slapping him so hard that he’d fallen on his arse. 

She remembered other times when her anger had spilled over; times when she’d been furious over what someone had done to someone else. 

_Yeah, like  I’m some heroine.  I’m not, you hear? Just someone who can’t control her temper. ‘M selfish and jealous and —_

( _Love you love you love. You love._ )

Before Rose could begin to think of how to respond to the wash of emotion that flowed over her, it was gone, as if a faucet somewhere had shut off. 

“Wait —” 

She sat up completely now, fighting a sense of loss. A sentence from some book she’d read as a little girl — “not a tame lion” — silently echoed in the absence. 

How had the TARDIS coaxed those recollections out of her unconscious, she wondered, trying not to dwell on being alone again in her own head. If it came to that, why didn’t she mind what was surely an intrusion into her mind? 

“‘Cause it’s Her,” Rose whispered to herself. She tried for a moment to reach out to Her, then looked down at her hands and grinned, just a little bit. She wasn’t going to get Her back, not now at least. And she didn’t really need to, she thought. Just because there was a cool, empty spot where those almost-words had so recently been didn’t mean they hadn’t been warm and loving when they were there. 

“Got it,” she said softly. “No more calling myself a cow.”

Beating herself up was stupid, she admitted. She’d said the right things — maybe not in the best way — and she could, if she’d only stopped to think of it, count on Jack and the Doctor to understand what she’d said. Besides it wasn’t as if the Doctor had the greatest social skills, she thought. Jack, sure, but ….

Rose finally allowed herself to relax into thoughts that weren’t about anything related to death, and drifted to sleep. 

She awoke when someone knocked on her door. 

“Rose?” The voice on the other side of the door was Hilda’s. “Are you alright? Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure,” she responded, knuckling at her eyes and swinging her bare feet — when had she taken off her trainers? — to the floor. 

Hilda walked into the bedroom hesitantly, as if she expected to be kicked out. But Rose patted the bed beside her and the older woman crossed the floor without hesitation. She looked around herself at the bedroom and back at Rose. “You’ve made a home here, haven’t you.” It wasn’t a question. 

Rose nodded. 

“And a family,” Hilda said, cautious but certain. 

Rose took a breath, then nodded again. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re a family.”

“You have a lot of love to give,” Hilda said. “You should be glad you were able to give it to Filomena, and to Luisa. They didn’t die alone. You’re the reason they didn’t. Thank you.”

A bit of the warmth Rose had felt with the TARDIS in her mind returned as she heard that. It wasn’t enough to heal the wound, but it did staunch the bleeding.  She swallowed, then said, “I guess. Thanks for saying it.”

The two women sat together, silent, until Rose reached for Hilda’s hands, and said, “There’s still work to do, yeah? What can I do to help?”

***   ****  **** *** 

_ After Inverno’s arrival _

“Rose!”

“Jack?”

“Rope, line, handcuffs — anything we can use to immobilize seven men … no, eight. Anything She can provide or that you can find on your own.”

“Gotcha.” Rose took off down the hall, sending out a mental call for help as she headed toward the one storeroom she knew she was most apt to run into. Sure enough, there it was, door already open. _Thank you._

She managed to find two sets of metal handcuffs and some rope, but that was it. “Damn!”

“Use these.” 

Rose yelped in surprise, then turned and saw Isobel Fahrar, holding out a tangle of plastic handcuffs. 

“Wha—”

“I had some,” Fahrar said. She looked at Rose and raised an eyebrow. 

“Just in case?” Rose successfully fought the urge to smile. 

“Just in case.” Fahrar was deadpan. 

Rose snatched the proffered cuffs and headed back to the control room. _Why do people I want to hate always end up helping me out?_

It was ridiculously easy to get the unconscious Maldads secured, even with one ear tuned to the tense and surreal conversation going on between the Doctor and Renhald Inverno. The man had shown up with the unconscious governor, and was pretty obviously using him as a hostage in order to get the Doctor to take him off-world.  

“Don’t. Push me.” 

Rose looked up when she heard Jack speak. She saw him trembling and knew he was on the verge of violence. _Not that I blame him._

“Hold on, Jack. Just a little longer.”

He turned his head just enough to catch her eyes, then jerked his chin in agreement. 

Minutes later, it was Jack who had to put a restraining hand on her arm, when she heard Inverno calmly tell the Doctor that he’d essentially booby-trapped the governor. The little man was probably hardly better than his second in command, she knew that, but he was sick and helpless. 

She turned to the Doctor. “Can he do that?” 

The Doctor’s answer made her seethe, but she kept her cool, keeping her cheer silent when he dragged Inverno bodily into the TARDIS. 

The man’s gaping wonder at Her interior was an abrupt departure from his previous unflappable attitude. “ _Sangre_ …”

The Doctor normally looked delighted when someone new entered the TARDIS. He glowered at Inverno. “It’s bigger on the inside, yes, you already know I’m a xeno so there’s that done, no, you’ll never get your hands on Her, yes She’ll take you off-planet, and yes, I’ll keep my word to do that. Have I answered every question? Can we get your patient to my medlab without wastin’ valuable time?”

“What about my men?” 

“What about ‘em? They’ll live.”

Nico had followed the gurney into the TARDIS. Now he joined the Doctor. Rose was somehow not surprised to see similarities between the two. _Guess you don’t have to be a 900-year-old Time Lord to hold the room._ “No more talking. Do what the Doctor tells you.”

“Doctor … you truly have no other name?” Inverno wasn’t really stalling, although Rose didn’t think he was talking for any reason than bloody-mindedness.  

Jao unholstered his stunner and aimed it at Inverno. “Move.” The gun jolted the man out of his bloody-mindedness in a very satisfactory fashion. 

They made a strange little parade, Rose thought; Nico pushing the gurney behind the Doctor, Inverno following with Jao and Jack bracketing him, guns drawn. She noted that the Doctor didn’t object to all the hardware on display. Hilda walked with her and Salvha, one hand lightly touching the little man’s shoulder. Just as she had touched Jack’s shoulder, Rose thought. She wasn’t sure that Salvha could control himself as well as the Captain, though.

Rose risked a sideways glance past Hilda to Salvha. She didn’t like what she saw, but as long as he didn’t actually explode, she wasn’t going to say anything about it. Best not to kick an unexploded bomb, she thought, the field outside St. Albion’s large in her memory.

“Here we are,” the Doctor said. The medlab hummed quietly to itself, lights in the wall displays cycling in time with the hum. 

Rose couldn’t help herself; she looked at the pod where Filomena lay. 

“Don’t worry,” the Doctor said, catching her eye briefly, with the tiniest of nods. “That’s locked. No one can get at her. She’s safe until you decide how to say goodbye.”

It wouldn’t be her decision, she knew. It would be Luisa’s father’s, and Salvha’s. And maybe Fahrar’s, she thought. The Maldad officer had cared for Filomena. _And aren’t we lucky she did._ The woman had brought up to the rear of the gurney train. When she looked at her former superior, her eyes were as hard as Rose had ever seen them. Inverno’s were equally cold when he noticed her staring at him.

“Move the governor over here,” the Doctor said, gesturing to his right. “Nico,  I want you here with me and Inverno. The rest of you can go.”

“But —” Rose started to object. 

“And by ‘you can go,’ I mean I want all of you out of here. This gentleman and I need peace and quiet,” the Doctor said, his voice making clear just how little he thought of the gentleman in question. “Nico stays because it’s his father we’re dealing with.”

“How long?” Jack kept the question brief. 

“My guess? No more than an Earth-standard half hour. Probably less.” Inverno, who had walked over to one of the wall displays, eyed the Doctor dubiously, before turning back to the displays. He didn’t touch anything. He clearly knew he was out of his depth. 

“Right,” Jack said, brisk and efficient. “Come on, folks. We have a bit more hurry up and wait before we get to move again.” 

“No one outside can get in the ship now. So no one can come in after those two?” Jao was still skeptical. 

“Nothing can get past those doors if She doesn’t want them to,” Jack said. “Don’t worry, Jao. She’ll keep us safe.”

Rose noted the approving look he got from the Doctor for saying that. Inside her head, she felt a warm buzz; from the quickly concealed but very happy surprise in Jack’s eyes, she thought he’d felt the same thing. The TARDIS was as happy to be complimented as the Doctor was to hear a compliment on her behalf. 

The lights in the halls leading to the library shone warm and golden. Rose was comforted by them. She thought it would help the others if they could feel even a little of the warmth themselves, but she wasn’t hopeful. Inverno’s presence had upset the small amount of calm she, Jack and the TARDIS had labored to instill in their guests. 

You forget, after running with the Doctor, how much chaos he generates, she thought. You forget, because you get used to it. _And you crave it, and that’s the honest truth._ She thought about how fearful her mother was of the Doctor. She wasn’t wrong, Rose thought. But there was no way she was ever going to extricate her daughter from the chaos, not when it got into her blood — 

“Does he really mean to let that godless filth get away?” Salvha wasn’t speaking to his resistance companions, Rose realized with a start. It had been 15 or 20 minutes of silence, so his voice had startled her.

“I don’t think so,” Rose replied. She wanted to be honest, but she didn’t know what she could honestly say; certainly nothing of what she’d been thinking when Salvha broke her concentration. “He … he fights for what’s right. But he does it his way.  I wish I could tell you more.”

“But he said he’d take the bastard off planet.”

“True,” said Jack from where he lounged, both legs crooked over one arm of a settee. “But I’m not sure Inverno is going to like what happens after that. The Doctor doesn’t like being coerced and he has a way of letting people know it. Trust me on this.”

“Huh.” Salvha still looked unconvinced. So did Hilda, Rose thought.

Then she looked closer, and realized she was seeing something else. Hilda had her eyes firmly fixed on Salvha. _Oh my god. She still thinks he’s going to do something bad._ Rose had thought that Salvha was calming under Hilda’s friendly hand, but that didn’t appear to be Hilda’s own judgement. 

Perhaps Jack saw the same thing. He swung his legs back around and stood up, walking over to where Salvha sat. He squatted down in front of the man. “Inverno will pay,” he said calmly, but firmly. “They all will.”

“If your man can’t do it, I will,” Salvha responded, just as calmly, and Rose felt the same chill she’d felt while they’d been in the corridor back at Central Command. 

“Adao —” Jao began. 

“ _What_?” The switch from calm to near-animal snarl plainly knocked Jack back on his metaphysical heels. He stood up without another word, and came over to stand beside Rose. She was grateful for his presence, and grabbed his hand. He squeezed hers, hard. 

Salvha’s outburst also appeared to dismay Jao, although that quickly resolved into a military bristle. “Control yourself.”

“How can  I?” So much heartbreak in those three words. 

Jao retreated into silence. When Hilda reached for Salvha’s shoulder, he brushed her hand away. She, too, retreated, to another seat near the door. 

Rose could think of nothing more to say; she looked up at Jack. He smiled at her and she felt better, even though she saw the worry in his eyes. 

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Jack murmured into her ear. 

“Don’t know what you can do if he blows up,” she replied in a whisper. 

“I’m bigger than he is.”

“Yeah, but … he kills,” she said bleakly. “You don’t.”  

Jack didn’t say anything, and Rose felt her stomach go even more hollow. 

Before she had time to say anything, she heard familiar boot steps in the hall. She turned toward the door just as the Doctor marched into the library. Nico followed, with Inverno in tow. The Lizhbauan strongman looked a little glassy-eyed; Rose wasn’t surprised, since the Doctor often had that effect on people who watched him in alien scientist mode. 

The Doctor swept the library, and its inhabitants, with a black gaze. “We’re ready,” he said. “Nico’s dad is sorted, and we’ve determined a destination for this one.” He jerked a chin at Inverno, not granting him the respect of a direct look. 

“Where?” Hilda divided her attention between Salvha and Nico. __

_I don’t blame you,_ Rose thought. _It’s hard to know who to pay attention to when they’re both primed to explode. Why do women always end up worrying about men who explode?_

“Virginis Prime,” the Doctor said. He was grim. 

“I have contacts there,” Inverno said. He looked as if he was about to continue speaking, but the Time Lord’s glare shut him up. 

“Everyone back to the console room,” the Doctor said, his comment brooking no dissent. No one offered any. 

The rotor wasn’t moving when the party came through the hall door into the green and coral branched center point of the TARDIS. As Rose and Jack entered, it began to rise and glow. The Doctor stared at it quizzically, then at the two of them. Rose thought he might have felt the same warmth at the base of his brain as she — and Jack, she saw — felt as they approached the console. 

_We’re here,_ she thought at the TARDIS. _We know you’ll do the right thing._

More warmth, and the most gentle of shocks. Rose thought it was Her way of asking for quiet. Even the TARDIS needed room to concentrate, and if that meant She could continue to navigate as accurately as Jack said She’d been doing over the past two days, Rose was glad to give her the room. 

She perched on the jumpseat, watching as the Doctor moved around the console, throwing switches and pressing buttons. Inverno stayed right behind him. He was frowning, which surprised Rose. Yes, the Doctor had made it clear he didn’t want to hear a word from him, but why was the man not looking at least a little more at ease? He was on his way to freedom — 

— unless he suspected that he wasn’t. 

Rose fought the twin urges to break out in a grin, and to try to contact the TARDIS to confirm her suspicion. But she felt hope fill that spot in her stomach that Salvha had emptied. Maybe the little man would get to see some real justice. She didn’t know what the Doctor had in store, but she now had the hope she hadn’t quite been able to transmit to Luisa’s husband only minutes ago. 

Perhaps she’d made a little noise; both the Doctor and Inverno turned in her direction. Inverno’s frown became even darker, but the Doctor … oh, the Doctor’s beautiful, crazy grin … there it was, all over his face. 

She felt a hand touch the back of her neck. It was Jack, who’d made his way around the room to be closer to her and to the Doctor. “How you doing, sweetheart?” The banked excitement in his eyes told her that he’d reached the same conclusion she had. 

“How long?” Inverno asked, his suspicious gaze on Rose and Jack as they stood across the console boards from him. The rotor rose and fell between them, green and golden, its piano-string rhythm both comforting and exhilarating to Rose. 

“Oh, not long at all, Renhald,” the Doctor said. His grin turned nasty. “Get yourself ready.”

Inverno didn’t immediately respond. He looked around the console room, then swung his head around to the Time Lord. “Why did you have everyone accompany us here?”

“Maybe it’s because I like to keep an eye on the humans in my care,” the Doctor said. “Or maybe it’s some strange alien reason that I have no intention of telling you.”

“You gave your word.” There was more than a hint of dismay in Inverno’s voice. 

“I said I’d get you off-planet, and I have no intention of going back on that,” the Doctor said. “And, no, I’m not going to kill you, much as a few folks standin’ very close to you probably would like that. They might even cheer me on.”

Now the man looked alarmed. 

“He probably just realized that leaving his bargaining chip in the medlab was a bad idea,” Jack said to Rose, _sotto voce_. “Good to know that evil genius villains can make stupid mistakes.” Rose thought her answering smile probably looked as mad as the Doctor’s.

No one else in the console room spoke, although Nico looked as if he wanted to say something. Instead, they watched the rotor as it pushed and pulled time and space to get to their destination. Rose saw the unabated wonder on their faces, and knew a little bit of that wonder still showed on her own. You never completely got over it, no matter how many times you saw it happen, she thought. 

She felt the TARDIS slow.

_Oh._

For a moment, Rose’s limbic system wanted her to throw up, before treating her to an almost sexual physical euphoria. It was the first time she’d felt that particular thalassic surge and release in her head, and it was unlike any other communication she’d yet had from Her. It was like a gift, but it was a most unusual offering, differing in intensity from the communication Rose was becoming used to.

_Is this what he feels when She moves? It can’t be, can it?_ Rose fought her imagination, and her forebrain was able to wrest control back from her brain stem and amygdala in time to hear the Doctor say “We’re here.”

“Virginis Prime?” Inverno asked suspiciously. 

“If you don’t trust me, see for yourself,” the Doctor said, contriving to look just a little hurt that the man didn’t believe him. 

Rose and Jack traded glances before Rose eyed everyone else. She saw that Nico and Jao had edged closer to the Doctor, Inverno and the door; in doing so, they appeared to have blocked Salvha from any position where he could easily reach Inverno. That didn’t mean that Salvha wasn’t trying. The little man was ignoring Hilda’s attempts, trying to shoulder his way past her.

The Doctor walked to the door. “Ready?”

Inverno followed his lead. “Open the door,” he said, trying for some of his earlier bravado, and failing.

She opened the door Herself, and Rose felt something dangerous begin to spark and ripple in the air around them. She was angry, Rose realized, and no longer felt like keeping it from Her humans, or anyone else in Her grasp.

Perhaps Inverno felt Her merciless focus. He fell back.

The Doctor scowled. “Well, are you gonna go? Can’t dilly-dally here all day,” he said. He grinned nastily again, but the nastiness was transforming into something else. 

“I —” Inverno’s cheek was sheened with sweat. 

Rose saw the storm in the Doctor’s eyes almost before it boiled up, so attuned had she become to both him and the TARDIS. He wasn’t nasty now, nor even angry. He was — Rose’s breath caught in her throat —  rage itself breaking through a formerly ironclad control, fury he must have felt as he fell into the awful truth of this place, fed by his own experience of it, and his fury in turn feeding Hers. 

A week earlier, Rose might have whimpered at the lowering tension, the feeling of lightning barely held in check. She didn’t whimper now. 

“You have no choice, Renhald Inverno.” His voice rolled out, dark as night and unforgiving as ocean ice. “Get out of my TARDIS.”

Beyond the doors, shouts of alarm. Rose wasn’t close enough to make out all the orders being barked, but she did hear two phrases repeated by several voices — _Sua Serenidade_ and _Proteja Majestada_. 

“No.” Inverno didn’t shout. He … moaned. “No.”

“Yes.” The Doctor, inevitable as death. He grabbed the other man by his shoulder, forced him forward, then backed up and put his booted foot into the small of Inverno’s back, and shoved. 

Inverno stumbled out of the TARDIS and into a blaze of ivory light. 

“Come on, everyone.” The darkness was still in the Doctor’s voice. “We have someone to meet. We’ve brought him a present.”

“What —” from Nico, from whose face the blood had drained. 

“You know,” the Doctor said, not even looking at him. “Come on.”

Rose and Jack were the first ones out the door after Inverno, who they saw had fallen face first onto the floor. She raised her head to look around.

_This is … beautiful_. 

Rose couldn’t help her awe. The pink-tinged ivory light emanated in a steady glow from the high ceiling and the walls. It should have been overwhelming, but it wasn’t. Topping the walls, a cornice of what looked like gold-veined black marble that helped define all those softly-shining walls, turning the space into a vast room, long and narrow, its white and gold-veined floor leading to a set of shallow steps at the far end. The stairs ended in a low dais.

She couldn’t take in much more; soldiers whose very dangerous weapons were all trained on them, unwavering despite their visible shock, surrounded her, Jack, the Doctor and the others. 

Inverno stayed frozen where he sprawled. Rose didn’t know if that was because of the weapons, or shock at where he had ended up. 

“Put down your weapons, lads,” the Doctor said. “He’ll want to see us.”

“Indeed.”

The light tenor carried clearly from the dais and when they heard it, the soldiers very reluctantly holstered their weapons.

The middle-aged man sitting atop the dais on a spartan high-backed chair stood up, pushing aside one of two small banks of computer screens on either side of the chair on wheeled frames. As he stood, the soldiers fell to one knee facing him, their heads bowed.

The Doctor inclined his head almost imperceptibly, then turned to speak to those behind him. 

“Friends, enemies,  I give you David, Lord of Armies, Judge of Civilization, Image of the Imperium, O Graça, O Majestade of the Great and Bountiful Empire of Humankind Among the Stars.”

tbc


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an emperor gains a weapon and loses a criminal, while the TARDIS is close to reaching Her goal.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was able to add a phrase at the bottom of this chapter that I wasn't quite certain I'd ever be able to. We're now well and truly near the end.  
>  **Edited by:** the incomparable **dr_whuh**. What would I do without you?  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They are the sole property of the BBC and their respective creators. I take no coin or credit, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

“I am no lord of armies. But I am forced to be many equally unpleasant things. A judge, for example.” 

David walked to the end of the dais, dismissing the phalanx of soldiers with a wave of his hand. They retreated to where they must have been standing when the TARDIS materialized. The hard glares he was getting made it clear to the Doctor that they would disobey that hand in an instant, should he threaten their ruler. Which, of course, the Doctor had no intention of doing. He liked the look of this human.

“It’s an uncomfortable position to take,” the Doctor said. 

David eyed him quizzically, then nodded, as if he’d seen something in the Doctor that he trusted. “It is. And I suspect your … unusual … arrival will require my judgement, at the very least. ” 

The emperor of the First Great and Bountiful Empire of Humankind Among the Stars appeared to be perhaps 50 or 55, judging by the almost unnoticeable retreat of thick kinky hair from his forehead and the slight grey at his temples. A second or two of extending his Gallifreyan senses and the Doctor knew better. David radiated age, in a way other Lizhbauans didn’t. The man was at least a standard human century old, perhaps 125. 

He was alive and healthy because the benefits of empire all bent toward him, but a quick look in his eyes assured the Doctor that this man was neither greedy for life nor afraid of death. It had to be related to the succession, he thought, whether that was lack of issue, or lack of worthy issue. That would be a burden many rulers couldn’t bear for long, the Doctor knew, not with an Empire the size of this one. Still, it was not his concern. 

He felt a snap of disagreement from the TARDIS, but hid his surprise from those around him. 

( _This is important?_ ) 

He got no answer, but he now added who might come after David to his evaluation of the ongoing situation. 

David wore a black tunic and slim black trousers, with black, low-heeled short boots. That was it. No crown, no sash, nothing to alleviate the black except a small gold, black, and silver medallion pinned on the tunic’s mandarin collar, bearing what appeared to be his family’s coat of arms. The Doctor would have approved of the restraint, but he knew it was mourning garb. Even had Nico not told him the fate of David’s mother, the Doctor was uncomfortably aware of the man’s pain. It spoke silently in his tired eyes, in the ashen cast overlaying his dark brown skin.

_Is any of that for victims other than your mother?_ He couldn’t help sympathizing with the man; nor could he help viewing him with the merciless eye of a Time Lord. Once again, he caught the emperor’s eyes, and was satisfied. _He grieves for all of them_. 

In fact, the Doctor realized with a deep sadness, David’s grief was for far more than the victims of silk. He was grieving for the entire empire. His grief was bidding fair to kill him, medical interventions notwithstanding. The Doctor knew well that a broken heart could translate into physical disability. _Ah. There’s the succession issue, right there_. 

The stasis engendered by the shock of their arrival and the emperor’s order wouldn’t, and really shouldn’t, last, the Doctor knew. He looked past David to rest of the room. No one but the emperor, his guard, and his unexpected guests; no staff, no courtiers. It could be early in the morning, before court officially was to begin. It could be late at night, with David the last person in the room. He was that type of ruler, the Doctor thought. 

He looked toward the top of the dais, then nodded at the chair. “Looks uncomfortable.”

“It is. I ordered it to be constructed that way. It’s a physical admonishment against delusions of grandeur.”

“Not many thrones have computer screens.”

“I prefer to have accurate information at my beck. And how many throne rooms have you materialized into?” The question was mild.

“More than I’d like to,” the Doctor responded. “Look, Emperor —”

“Etiquette generally suggests Majestade or Serenidade.” Was that the merest glimpse of a smile?

“I doubt you have much to be serene about, but fine. Serenity, I bear you no ill-will and won’t be the cause of any danger to you or the empire. Neither will my companions — Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler, the good lookin’ ones in that gaggle behind me. In fact, we’re here to help the Empire, as are the folks with Jack and Rose. Jao Neves is the one built like a bullet, and he’s one of your agents; Black Throne, I think you call’em?” 

David stiffened, and the Doctor heard, rather than saw, the guards take a step closer. He ignored the sound and went on. “The little man with Jao is very dangerous, but very loyal: Salvha Adao’s his name. Hilda Ghildau is another one of your agents, but she’s wasted on that sort of thing. She’s as gifted a genetic architect as your empire has, I’ll warrant, and I should know.

“You may not recognize the tall man, but he’s Nico Machado Bohlver of Lizhbau, and his silk-addled father, the governor, lies in my medlab while I try to undo the damage to his mind and body. Not optimistic, but I’m not a quitter, either. Nico’s officially a dead terrorist, but he’s another of your loyal subjects, as is Sous Tenante Isobel Fahrar. I think you can forgive the lieutenant her past sins, especially since she probably won’t be able to do it herself.

“The specimen who still hasn’t raised his head from the floor, on the other hand?” The Doctor let his revulsion show. “That’s the poison in your empire, Serenity. That’s what’s in need of judgement. Renhald Inverno of Lizhbau. He controls the silk trade today. And he’s going to admit it all, because he knows he can’t avoid it.”

The look in David’s eye was suddenly as fell as it had been calm a moment before. “Rise.”

“Serenity—” Inverno had found his voice, although it was not much more than a whisper. He hadn’t yet found his feet. 

“Stand up. Or I will have my guards stand you up.” He gestured and two guards moved toward Inverno. 

The man scrambled erect with just about as much dignity as his throne room entry had afforded, but he managed to stay upright. He wouldn’t look up, and the Doctor wasn’t surprised; the man had a well-developed survival instinct, and he probably knew looking directly at the emperor wouldn’t be a good idea. His mind was also probably working overtime, trying to figure a way out of his predicament, the Doctor knew. He’d done the same thing uncountable times. But Inverno was no Time Lord, and there was no way out for him. 

“Forget it, Renhald Inverno. There is no way for you to escape this maze.”The Doctor’s glee was savage. 

“I am a loyal subject of His Majesty,” Inverno said, still not raising his eyes, but trying for a steady delivery. He wasn’t very successful. “You are a … an unknown quantity with a dangerous, alien weapon that managed to get past all of the Imperial protections Earth has. You have the governor of my world as a hostage —”

The Doctor couldn’t help it. He laughed. He had to give the bastard points for trying. “Just stop it. You know you’ve lost.”

Inverno finally looked up. He stared at the Doctor, looking, unaccountably, like a child betrayed. “You promised me!”

The Doctor almost felt sorry for him. “I gave you everything I said I would. I just gave you a little more.”

Silence. 

The Doctor turned to the emperor. “How long, Serenity, before court is due to convene?”

“About 25 minutes.”

“Earth minutes?”

“That’s where we are.”

“Then that’s all we need.” He turned and gestured. “Nico. Hilda. Here, now. Give him what you have. Tell him how you can end silk.”

David turned his glare from Inverno to the Doctor. “Be very careful about what you say, xeno. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.”

That look was one the Doctor was sure had silenced thousands. He wasn’t cowed, because he knew the contents of files he’d arranged to have the TARDIS insert into the emperor’s hidden Black Throne system.

“You’ll have something on your screens now, or will within the next few moments, that will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt what this man and woman will tell you. You can decide if you trust what you learn,” he said, making sure he caught the emperor’s eye as he said it. 

“How?” The one word encompassed a universe of questions. Only David’s imperial training kept raw hope out of his eyes and voice.

“Because I’m an alien with the right kind of tech,” the Doctor said gently.

“Because he’s here to see justice done.”

The Doctor started. 

Jack had come up behind him. He put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, warm and solid. Rose came up on his other side, putting her smaller hand on his other shoulder. 

“He’s the Doctor. He heals things,” she said. “Not … not everything, not everyone.” She stumbled a bit; the Doctor was sure everyone could hear the tears she was forcing herself not to cry. “A lot of people die, because he’s not God, yeah?” 

The tears won. “He c-couldn’t s-save Luisa or F-Filomena. _I_ couldn’t save them, I know, but he tried to. He tries. He tries when n-nobody else will try.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “We were held prisoner with silk, but even if we hadn’t been, he would have wanted to stop it. That’s what he does.” 

She didn’t say anything more. The Doctor felt Jack reach for her behind his back. Jack’s arm seemed to cradle him as he did so.

“It’s OK, Rosie,” Jack murmured. “It’s alright, love.”

_I am not jealous when I hear him say that_. He understood what simmered in his hearts as much as he understood the hope in David’s eyes.

From an unexpected corner: “Whatever this xeno sends to your screens, Serenity, whatever Nicola and Ghildau tell you, I will attest to. It’s on my honor as a soldier. Whatever honor I have left.” The Doctor looked back, to see Fahrar drop to one knee. 

“Majesty, everything the Doctor says is true. He and his companions, they helped us get into Inverno’s laboratories,” Jao said, close on Fahrar’s heels. He, too, was on one knee. The Doctor beat back the irritation he felt. _Patience. In a few centuries, it becomes a different, better civilization. And for now, at least it’s in the hands of a decent human, so don’t be such a Time Lord about it all_.

“You’re Jao Neves?” 

“Aye, Majesty.”

“Rise, Neves.”

Jao did so, and the Doctor saw awe soften the hard planes of the man’s face. “What would you have me do?”

“I’m not sure yet. Let me see what this Doctor has sent me.”

David gestured to the entire group, save Inverno, to follow him, walking back to his seat as he did so. He sat down, touched one of the screens next to the chair and intently read whatever had come up when he keyed it on. No one spoke, or even moved. He looked up twice, once to eye the Doctor with surprise, and a second time to send a hard look at Nico while he closed the display. 

“Captain Dado.”

One of the guards stepped forward, one hand fisted across his chest. “Serenity.”

“Tell _Mordomo_ Aleixo that court is delayed by one hour. Imperial business. No one is to come in here until that business is completed.”

“Serenity.” The man, Dado, bowed his head, then touched some electronica in his ear. The Doctor could see his jaw muscles moving minutely. “It’s done.”

“Thank you, Captain.” David smiled at the head of his guard, and the Doctor knew he meant the smile. _Good man. It’s too bad he’s emperor_.

“And Captain? Take Ser Inverno to a holding cell. He’ll stand trial —”

“No!”

“Excuse me?” The emperor was not pleased. 

Salvha walked jerkily toward David and the two soldiers holding Inverno upright. He dropped to one knee, as Fahrar and Jao had, but he raised his eyes to David. 

“Majesty, are you saying that this man will stand trial for his crimes?”

David nodded, and the Doctor knew he thought his answer would comfort Salvha. “He will. And it appears that he is accused of countless of them.”

“What will happen if he’s found guilty? Will he die?”

David looked shocked. “No. We do not kill.” 

“But _he_ has, Serenity. He deserves to die!”

There was a long and uncomfortable silence, as those in the room digested Salvha’s near intolerable — to the emperor and his subjects, at least — insolence. 

David himself showed restraint as stark as his dress. “I can tell that you have lost someone to silk, Ser Adao. So have I. And I might personally agree with you about what he deserves. But — and I repeat this only because I share some of your heartache, since you should know this as well as I do — this empire does not kill. It re-educates, it alters memories, it imprisons. It does not kill.”

He chose to ignore Salvha’s continued lack of response, turning again to Captain Dado. “Remove this man.”

The Doctor felt what was was about to happen before it happened. Everything in his brain slid in four dimensional directions, and he felt the timeline change ever so slightly, the pitch and yaw of entropic waves making the universe shiver.

******

_He puts out a hand, too slowly. He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out in time._

_He sees Salvha dart forward — so fast, when everything else is so slow — eluding everyone in the room before they even know he is eluding them, or that they should try to stop him._

_He sees Salvha reach Inverno._

_The taller man is so focused on the emperor that he has no chance to turn his head at the commotion about to begin behind him._

_The guards bracketing him are slightly faster, but still so painfully sluggish. Their heads have just begun to turn when Inverno’s is jerked back, Salvha’s powerful fingers grabbing his hair._

_The knife is thin and almost lovely. It catches the light, then caresses Inverno’s throat, drawing an equally thin red thread behind it._

_The red thread widens. Red pearls depend from what is now a ribbon. Within the ribbon, thinner bands of white, yellow, and black appear before the red pearls drop and transform into rivers._

_He sees Inverno’s hands move from trying to get Salvha’s fingers out of his hair, to his throat. His fingers twitch in slow motion, and become as red as the pearls and ribbons._

_He sees Inverno’s eyes, and his mouth, as they open and close. He sees Salvha push Inverno’s head away, as if it is something distasteful to touch._

_He sees slow lightning erupt from the muzzles of the guards’ weapons._

_He sees the lightning reach Salvha._

_He sees Salvha smile, grateful as a weary child being taken to bed._

_He sees Inverno topple one way, Salvha another._

_The timeline stutters and rebalances ever so slightly off what has, until now, been the true. The new line quickly becomes the true. The change, small as it is, tugs at the back of his mind just as Salvha’s fingers had tugged at Inverno’s head._

_Time speeds up and everything takes place as he has seen that it will_. 

*****************

He was the first to reach Salvha, who was still breathing. Behind him, he heard Fahrar’s muffled curse, and those of the imperial guards.

The little man looked up at him. “Had to,” he managed. “No apologies.”

The Doctor, still trying to regain control of his time sense as the timeline steadied, could say nothing. He didn’t have to; Nico and Hilda dashed to Salvha’s side, both of them stricken. 

“Salvha, _Sera Lumina … sangre_ ….” Nico was shaking as he pulled Salvha’s head onto his lap. “You fool.”

Salvha drew another ragged breath. “It hurts.”

“Of course it hurts.” Nico could barely speak himself. 

“You’d … you’d have done it … if it’d been Hilda,” Salvha finally got out. 

Nico glanced at Hilda, who was crying unashamedly, then back to Salvha. He didn’t lie to his sworn man; he couldn’t bring himself to, the Doctor saw, but he bowed his head, and Salvha’s face lightened enough that it was obvious he chose to believe that his captain agreed. He coughed, and red froth bubbled out of one side of his mouth. 

The Doctor saw the burn marks around the hole in Salvha’s jacket, just above his heart, and looked away. It wouldn’t be long now. He saw the guards start to move in and, with a wave fully as peremptory as David’s had been, halted them in their tracks. “Let them be.”

They looked to David, who nodded wordlessly. Even rulers of world-spanning realms weren’t immune to the shock of unexpected violence, the Doctor saw.

He turned to Jack and Rose, whose shock was visibly less than that of everyone else in the room. Jack dipped his chin in the Doctor’s direction, then at Rose, who had tucked herself under his arm. 

“Is he gonna —” She stopped herself. 

“Yes.” Rose closed her eyes; that was the extent of her emotional tell. He looked at Jack, who was equally stone-faced. 

He wanted more than anything to take his companions away from this place, but there were still a few more tasks he, and they, couldn’t escape. 

Just as he thought that, he heard a gasp from Salvha, a frothy rattle from his lungs, then nothing more. He turned and saw Nico shut the little man’s eyes, as Hilda wiped her own. 

For moment nobody said anything. Then David cleared his throat. 

“Well. Where does this leave us?” the emperor asked, eyeing Nico and Hilda, who held hands over Salvha, then looking down at Inverno’s prone body as its head gained an increasingly dark and sticky corona of blood. His imperial mask was once more firmly in place, the shock replaced by degrees with anger. “Two are dead who should still be alive. Does this change what you, Ser Bohlver and Sera Ghildau, have to tell me? Shall I now have all of you taken to the cell instead of that man?”

He pulled the two banks of computer screens closer to himself, effectively blocking others from physically reaching him. A touch at one screen, and the screens moved down and out like the petals of a flower, allowing him to look over their tops at those in front of him.

Nico looked briefly at the Doctor, who studiously ignored him. _This is yours to tackle, revolutionary_.

“Serenity, I … can’t say that I am sorry about Inverno. That would be dishonest of me.” He stopped momentarily, considering his next words. “I am sorry that it took place in your throne room. And I am sorry that Salvha is dead. He was a good man driven past a point of no return. There are many like him on Lizhbau.”

David cocked his head, looking a little like a raptor as he caught Nico in an unblinking gaze. “At the hands of this man. And of your father.”

Nico bent his head in acknowledgement. “Yes, Serenity. But my … my father … has been punished by his own sin.”

“This would be why our Ser Doctor —”

“Just Doctor.” When the emperor looked at him, the Doctor decided not to interrupt again. Even he occasionally knew when to shut up.

David resumed. “This would be why this ‘just doctor’ referred to him as silk-addled?” 

“Yes.” Nico said. 

“Why should that excuse him from official judgement?” Bladed steel in his voice. 

“It doesn’t, Serenity,” Nico said, his own voice rough. “But I don’t believe he will ever be well enough to face judgement — no, Doctor, don’t say anything. I know you’ve fought to make him better; you’ve undone what damage you could, and that’s more than the empire’s doctors could do for him. But he is … broken beyond repair. 

“My father is dead, even though his heart continues beating.”

Jack had told the Doctor that Nico insisted on proclaiming his disinterest in the governor; Jack had also told him that the disinterest was patently false. Anyone paying attention to Nico Machado Bohlver in this moment could clearly see that. Yet the man didn’t shy from the truth, the Doctor saw, even when it caused him agony. 

He was relieved; the last review he’d done of Dehde Bohlver’s vital signs clearly showed that when he awakened — which he would, thanks to the Doctor’s repairs of most of Inverno’s immediate damage — he would most likely have the cognitive abilities of a six-year-old. He’d saved the man from the physical death Inverno had tried to booby-trap him with, but not much more. “Nico’s right, Your Majesty,” he said. “Your current Lizhbauan governor won’t rule again. Victimizer turned victim … it’s not justice, not really, but it’s balance of a sort.” 

“I see.” David looked tired, but schooled his face back to impassivity. “It falls on me, then, to strike his name from the gubernatorial roll, and to name his successor. That will be easy, of course.”

Most around the Doctor looked blank; Nico abruptly looked horrified. “Serenity, no. No … not —”

“What I decide will not — _not_ — be subject to debate,” the emperor said flatly. “You may refuse, and continue as an official enemy of the crown. Or you have can acknowledge that your family’s appointment is still in full force, and that you have the ability to recover your family’s honor by rescuing your world. 

“Don’t fight this, Nicola Bohlver. I’m burdened already with the empire’s future; do not weigh me down further by adding uncertainty over the governance of one planet. Do I make myself clear?”

After one panic-filled look to Hilda, Nico reluctantly sank to one knee and bent his head. “As you command, Serenity.”

“Good. Very good.”

The Doctor could feel the TARDIS doing Her own version of holding Her breath. _There’s still something needs uncovering, but You won’t tell me more than that, will You_? 

David pointed to the Doctor. “This man says you have a weapon to destroy the silk trade forever. I’ve read some of the files I find in my system — my security chiefs will probably want to know how you did that, Doctor — and they have convinced me to hear you out. There are people in my court who will be far less than pleased if what you have proves to be true. What you show me must stay here until I say otherwise. 

“So here is what we will do. Captain Dado, summon Aleixo. He will deal with closing court for the rest of the day; appointments can be rescheduled, and it will be put down to my usual ailment. We will remove to my salon to go over this further. You and he will also see to it that these bodies are taken care of with no one the wiser. If Ser Bohlver desires that his man’s body be removed to the … to that —”

“It’s called the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “My TARDIS.” 

“To the TARDIS, then,” David continued. “If that’s Ser Bohlver’s wish, do it.”

Nico took that as permission to rise. He nodded at Captain Dado, who ordered two of his men to pick up the body of the man they’d killed. 

“Jack, will you help them back to the medlab?” the Doctor asked. Jack smiled his assent, and the Doctor felt his hearts shiver at the trust he saw in that smile. “You know how to operate the pods. Put Salvha in the one next to Filomena.”

“Will do. Rose, you want to stay here, or come with me?”

Rose looked at Jack, then at the Doctor. “I’ll stay here, if that’s OK.”

Jack’s smile didn’t fade. If anything, it grew. “Always, darlin’.” The Doctor felt something warm and soft brush against his consciousness; She obviously cared for Jack. It made him feel better about his own feelings, although he resolutely put them aside for now. 

David shook his head. “I ask that the young lady, Tenante-Coronol Neves and Tenante … Fahrar?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“I ask that you all return to the TARDIS. You are no longer needed here.” He said it politely, but it was an imperial order. Once again, the Doctor put aside his irritation. Remember that they’re human, he told himself. 

Jao bent his head in assent, then headed back into the TARDIS. Rose and Jack, hands clasped tightly and unselfconsciously, turned their eyes to the Doctor. He shrugged back at them. They both nodded, then turned to the somber task of seeing the guards bring Salvha’s body back to the medlab. The Doctor was glad that David had not suggested Inverno’s body be dealt with the same way. It had been torturous for him to let the man into his beloved craft in the first place. Let the empire take care of what was left.

Suddenly, David put up a hand. “Wait. Tenante.” 

Fahrar froze, then composed herself and turned. “Serenity.”

“Stay. You have knowledge of the workings of Lizhbauan authorities, correct?”

“Yes.” Fahrar definitely wanted to be somewhere else, the Doctor saw. 

“Then you will be valuable to me.”

“No, Serenity.” Her voice was so low that the Doctor almost missed what she said. 

David did not. He didn’t look displeased, quite, but his voice was sharp in response. “No?”

“Majesty, I am not …” Fahrar cast about for words. “I’m not worthy. That is no bromide. I truly am not worthy.”

The Doctor felt Her listening in. _This? This is what you’re waiting for_?

“You spoke about your honor earlier,” the emperor said. “Honor, it seems, that is at a premium, much as it is for the governor’s family.”

Fahrar looked to one side of herself, and then another as if searching for someone who would speak on her behalf. Finally, she raised her eyes to the emperor. The shame on her face was hard to miss. “I have none, Serenity. I obeyed orders I should not have; I ordered things that should never have been done. I allowed the sickness to continue, and I even tried to make it run more efficiently.”

The emperor accepted what she said in silence. Then he spoke again. “Did you join these people because you thought it would lessen your eventual punishment?” 

That clearly knocked the woman off her pins. “No, Majesty. I … I didn’t join them. I just … couldn’t do what I was doing anymore.”

“Did you expect to face punishment?”

“I … yes.” 

“Would you have defended yourself?” 

This time she had no difficulty answering. Her face set, and the Doctor saw in it a hint of the steel she’d first exhibited to him. “No, Majesty. How could I?”

The emperor nodded in approval. “Then I have no difficulty in making use of your knowledge. Nor do I have difficulty in imagining that you could someday regain your honor.”

“Serenity.” She placed her fist over her heart, in salute. The look in her eyes spoke of renewed optimism and newborn faith. 

In that moment, the Doctor felt two things; a surge of what could only be called elation from the TARDIS, and another slightly disorienting shift in his own head, as the timeline adjusted itself yet again. _She’s the solution to the succession? Really_?

There was no answer, but he was fairly sure he’d find confirmation in the library after all of this was over — 

— after all of this was over.

The Doctor shut his eyes. 

One weight left his shoulders, as he realized that in a matter of hours, he, Hilda and Nico would convince David that their work truly meant the end of lamia silk. 

With what they had, and if the Doctor could persuade David that providing extra help to Lizhbau could prevent a planetary economic collapse, or at least minimize it … well, the rest was in the hands of the humans of the First Empire. Lizhbau might survive. And David might now have the strength to neutralize the planetary barons who currently benefited from the silk trade; cutting off the source in one fell swoop would give him the benefit of surprise. If any ruler could make use of what he’d been given, David was it, the Doctor thought.

It would be messy, and it would be tragic. But thanks to what he’d been able to add to the game, it might be a little less messy, and a little less tragic. It wasn’t every day that everybody lived. Most of the time, he was simply glad to help ensure that not everybody died. He’d take that today. 

The other weight still lay on him. But it wasn’t as frightening as it had been. _Maybe it’s less a weight than the feel of arms, steadying me_.

He waited for another part of him to resist, as it had resisted so many times before. It was nowhere to be found. 

“Doctor?” 

When he turned around, Rose was there. Of course she’d pay little attention to an emperor, he thought, with something approaching giddy joy. Of course she would go where she wanted to. Of course she would come back to him. 

“Everything set up inside?”

“Yeah. The guards are coming out. They didn’t want to stay very long. She spooked them.” She grinned, just a little. “What about you? Are you gonna be long?”

He shook his head, and she nodded, satisfied. “Good. Come back soon, Doctor. 

“Jack and I are waiting for you.”

_tbconcluded_.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are, at long last, endings and beginnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't get it done in a decade, but 11 years seemed to be the magic time period. Thank you to everyone who stuck with this ridiculously lengthy WIP; I hope it's been worth the wait, despite 11 years of changing writing style and prowess, and undoubtedly some messed up plot points. (Too many years, and too many chapters, and perhaps not enough careful reviewing by Your Humble Author, to blame for that last.)  
> Many thanks to those who helped me keep at it, and who helped in many different ways. Thank you to **a_phoenixdragon** , **editrx** , and **ljgeoff** , and always, always, always, my Best Beloved, **dr_whuh**. You are the absolute best, and I love you more than cookies.  
>  Thanks and love to everyone I wrote about: to Luisa, Filomena, Nico, Hilda, Salvha and Jao, to David, to Pau and Laowhra, even to Inverno and the elder Bohlver. Thanks, especially, to the Doctor, Rose, and Jack, the OT3 of my heart. What shall I do without this story of yours to tell?  
> Finally, thank you to **cathica** , whose prompt all those years ago started this journey. She's an immensely talented writer and a lovely person, and this is all because of her.  
>  **Disclaimer:** As much as I wish it were otherwise, no Whoniverse characters are mine. They belong to the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement and take no coin. I simply love them, and thank the BBC for letting me play in their sandbox.  
> 

The wind was slight but cold, as it blew the feathery aqua leaves just enough to make them a cloud around the upper trunk and branches of the trees. The base of the grey-green trunks were obscured by tall stands of teal grass, with heads of grain just as feathery as the trees’ foliage. 

Rose craned her neck to see the treetops, then looked around the clearing at the waving grass and thought about walking under and on top of clouds. Beyond the copse, which clung determinedly to the nearly perpendicular hill, gurgled one of the many narrow rills that tumbled from the top of the peak, so much higher than any of those around Abela Fort’leza. Below them was the village of Val D’vento, where Nico had brought his father.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I wish the wind would die down.” Jack turned up the collar of his greatcoat. 

“You should have worn a cap. Your ears are gonna freeze.” Rose was bundled up, with a soft wool scarf covering her lower face, and a blue knit cap pulled low over her forehead. She dug into one of the pockets in her coat. “Here.”

Jack looked at her offering. “A toque? What am I, Canadian?”

She grinned at him through her scarf. “You’re a thin-blooded desert planet native, isn’t that what you told me? Put it on, so we can get back to admiring the view without your whinging.”

“Yes ma’am.” Jack carefully adjusted the toque, then pulled Rose to him. She put an arm around his waist, looked up into his face and smiled at what she saw. The skin around his eyes still looked a little bruised with weariness, but he looked happy, fully happy, for perhaps the first time since he’d come aboard the TARDIS, Rose thought.

He smiled down at her. "I admit, it is beautiful. A nice place to visit.”

“Not yet,” she said somberly. “It’ll be a nice place to visit, once Nico’s installed and he can really start the clean-up.” 

His expression turned serious. “Sweetheart, this planet’s so messed up, it’s going to take him years.”

She acknowledged that with a slight shrug. “Good thing he’s young. Good thing he’s got Hilda.”

They stopped talking. It was midday and the sun was as high in the clear, pale sky as it would get on this early summer day. On the far horizon, Rose could just see the hazy outline of Gel Colinas, where it rose above the capital. Between there and where they stood was a range of increasingly tall hills, edging into mountains. Most hid narrow valleys in their skirts, each with streams pouring down into the frigid river that flowed into Abela Fort’leza’s bay. 

Rose had seen a lot of breathtaking worlds with the Doctor, but this was the one she knew she would always love, if only because of what they’d gone through and what they’d discovered. 

More silence, until an unexpected gust pushed at their backs and blew out past them into the vast and empty air, prompting Jack to say, “Augh. I know it’s gorgeous, but … why the damned wind?” He grimaced a bit, then pulled the toque further down over his ears and looked out across the main valley.

Rose resisted laughing at his be-toqued appearance, and focused on his question. “It’s in the town’s name, yeah? I don’t think the wind ever stops blowing here.” After a moment’s thought, she added softly, “Maybe not anywhere on this world.”

Almost invisible in the delicate lilac of the high atmosphere were Lizhbau’s two moons, dancing with each other as they orbited the planet in slightly different paths. She wondered what they’d look like when night finally came. _I can go outside and watch, maybe. Before we leave_.

Rose didn’t know how long they stood there, content just to hold each other, but it must have been some time. When something at the back of her mind started to itch, she looked up and saw Jack looking down at her, against a sky that had grown considerably more lilac. 

“You too?” he asked. 

“Yeah.”

“Time to go home, then?”

“Agreed. And I’m finally getting cold.” She giggled a little, at his snort. They turned back to the path, preparing to make their way down from the crags to the Bohlver villa.

Neither of them were sure the TARDIS was calling them the way a human might, but the pull they felt from Her had become an intermittent reality for both of them since the dual dreamtime incidents that brought them back together. The Doctor was no help. He wasn’t sure what his ship was doing, and he didn’t seem all that eager to investigate. 

She’d asked Jack what he thought of it on their way back to Lizhbau. Jack had said the link he had with the TARDIS now went far beyond the minimal touches he’d had from Her before the whole adventure started. Those were probably due to his Agency psi training, he said. What he and Rose were feeling now? He had shaken his head, and then had asked if she really wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth. She had understood. They’d said nothing more about it. Perhaps they’d figure it out; perhaps not. 

When it came right down to it, Rose wasn’t interested in over-thinking. She knew what she felt was Her — _and what’s consciousness to a transcendental blue box, eh_?

Today they both felt Her pull, and they acquiesced.

_Conscious or not, She wants us back home. She’s calling us. She’s not gonna let us get too far from Her, not for a while. Nor from him. That’s fine by me_. 

****

David’s rulings had been final. 

Fahrar was permanently banished from Lizhbau, enjoined from ever returning to the planet of her birth. She was to remain in David’s court, he said, as a liaison with Nico Bohlver, who he named Lizhbau’s new governor. Nico had looked alarmed, and Hilda bemused, at the idea of having to work with Fahrar. The now-banished soldier had just bowed her head, apparently not caring who saw the tears fall. 

The Emperor had continued. Nico was to hold his father’s parole for as long as the older man survived. He was to shut down the Memory Market and its attendant evils, from drug sales to slavery. He was also to purge planetary forces of anyone loyal to Inverno. With as much mercy as possible, the emperor had said; if that was not possible, then with efficient sanction. 

We will not waste this opportunity, David had continued remorselessly. We grant you the use of Black Throne, if necessary, but prefer that you bring your own forces under control. They will be needed to rescue those who have been damaged or destroyed by lamia. Let those who participated in the evil be made to help cure it, he said. Jack had thought about the Maldads, and wondered which among them would be worthy of that trust.

David had not been through. We will make use of Black Throne ourselves, he had said. There are those we will need to encourage onto a new path, one that no longer makes use of lamia in any form, not even for purposes of empire. He had said this whilst looking straight at the few, shocked, high court officials ultimately led into the room and given the news. Several had visibly blanched.

Jack had seen the Doctor’s dark look at David’s disturbingly bland phraseology, but noted his silence as well, as well as the very slightest shadow of approval. He had decided to keep his own thoughts to himself. David, Lord of Armies and Judge of Civilization ….

Once back on the TARDIS he waited for a free moment. “Doctor, will you come with me to the library? There’s something I want to check.”

“In the library.” The Doctor looked curious. 

“After you and Rose left, way back at the beginning of this whole shebang, I went to the library, looking for anything I could learn about Lizhbau.”

The Doctor smiled at him and said, with a certain wry acknowledgement of his own consistent failing. “Getting to know the territory? That’s a good habit. Should practice it, me.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen, is it?”

Before Lizhbau, Jack wouldn’t have said something like that to the Time Lord.   
Before Lizhbau, the Doctor wouldn’t have laughed and touched Jack’s shoulder in acknowledgement. 

The two of them headed for the library, and Jack found “David’s Justice: When Lizhbau’s Memory Market Fell,” lying on the end table where he’d left it in his hurry to get to the market square. He quickly thumbed through it. 

“Wow.”

Jack collapsed into the chair next to the end table, astonished. He checked the book’s front and back covers carefully, found the pale stain from the water glass he’d inadvertently set down on the front cover. It was the same edition, sure enough, but … he began to read aloud, looking up repeatedly to catch the Doctor’s reaction. 

“The tipping point came when a non-human visitor helped rebels, outraged by the uptick in Memory Market abductions and led by Dehde Bohlver’s previously incarcerated son, to kidnap Renhald Inverno. The xeno brought Inverno and the drug-damaged governor to Earth, apparently bypassing imperial defenses effortlessly.” 

Jack continued. “Neither Inverno nor Dehde Bohlver ever faced trial. Bohlver was declared cognitively incapable of aiding in his own defense. Even before that, one of Nico Bohlver’s men, affected by the brain death of a female companion, slit Inverno’s throat in David’s own throne room before himself being killed by the imperial guard.”

The Doctor sat down across from Jack and shrugged. “You didn’t bring me here to tell me what I already know, Captain. So what am I hearin’ here?”

Jack said, “That wasn’t what the book originally said. This page originally read that the unnamed alien, the ‘xeno,’ fought his way into Bohlver’s quarters, with, and I quote from memory because it’s what sent me careering out of here trying to find you guys, “a brain-dead female companion.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘Oh.’ When I first read the book, it said you — excuse me, the ‘unnamed alien’ — sparked something called the Silk Rebellion. And here’s the thing; when I read that, I distinctly remember knowing I’d heard something about the Silk Rebellion back at the Agency. Not much, but it was there in my memory. I think.

“Now, I can barely keep that memory in my head. Because I know what actually happened; I saw it with my own eyes, and it went down just like the book now reads. The other memory … feels like a fairy tale.”

The Doctor heaved a breath and blew it out, reaching up to scratch his close-shorn head in what Jack interpreted as a stalling tactic. His subsequent irritated head-shake was obviously at himself. “What you originally read in the book was what happened, before we changed the timeline.”

Jack couldn’t help himself. “You can’t change —”

“Says the former employee of an agency whose stated mission implies knowing full well that timelines can change.” The Doctor didn’t bother to hide his amusement.

“Yeah, alright, they can be changed,” Jack allowed. “But it’s dangerous.”

The Doctor held up one finger. “First off; if you really think that, why did you take off like a bat out of hell to find us? You were trying to change the future right there.”

Jack looked down at his feet, then back up at the Doctor. “I was. You know why.” He looked back down, still a little afraid to watch the Gallifreyan after saying something so emotionally open.

“I’m learnin’,” the Doctor replied, unexpectedly gently. “You don’t need to inspect the floor so hard, Captain. Someone I respect a great deal recently drummed some not-so-common sense into my head about hearts, and … and I want to talk about that, too. Not now. Later, I promise. And know this; I’m not only glad you did what you did because of Rose, I’m also honored that you thought me worth the trouble.”

Now it was the Doctor who looked away, before turning back to Jack and saying with perfectly artificial heartiness, “You don’t mind if we go back to the whole timeline thing, though, just for now?”

Jack felt absurdly grateful that he wasn’t the only awkward one in the room. He nodded, and the Doctor went on, visibly relieved at being able to back away from the almost-conversation.

“Here’s the thing about timelines. They’re surprisingly flexible,” he said, slipping back into his usual lecture mode. “Time Lords didn’t like to admit that, and it’s safer to consider them hard and fast, because that way you avoid accidents — but the reality is, some points in time are made of metaphysical steel, some are made of elastic, and some are practically water, cosmically speakin’.”

He stood up, and walked over to pick up the book. “What we had here was … let’s call it elastic. Something was going to bring down silk on Lizhbau, and do it about now. But the potential means were multiple. You couldn’t stop it, but you could amend things; people who were directly involved in one line, might only be indirectly involved in another. The location of key action could move from Lizhbau to Earth, so long as the action took place.”

“And a dead alien woman whose companion sparks a rebellion?” Jack caught the incipient wobble in the Doctor’s voice, where most listeners mightn’t have. “In the final timeline, becomes two dead Lizhbauan women, one of them loved by a man who kills their killer. No need for a rebellion, because it’s taken place in front of an emperor who is ripe for change.”

As he mentioned the emperor, the Doctor’s eyes suddenly sharpened. He’d been in the process of putting the book back down, but reversed himself. 

“Hmmm.”

“Hmm?” 

“Yeah … let’s see … something about what ol’ Davey said,” he said, moistening a finger and flipping some pages. 

“ _Davey_?” Jack nearly choked. 

“Shhh … thinkin’ … not here … nope, not that —” He subsided into almost subvocal muttering until — “Aha! Knew it!”

“Knew what?”

The Doctor read from the book as an answer. “Isobel Fahrar, an officer in what ordinary Lizhbauans had come to fear as the Maldads, became known as ‘David’s Hostage,’ after she came to regret her part in Bohlver’s and Inverno’s oppression, and helped the xeno bring them both to David’s court. 

“The emperor kept her by his side for — now _that’s_ interestin’ ….”

“ _What’s_ interesting?”

“This is. Listen. ‘For 19 years, she was required to work as his personal liaison with Lizhbau, as David and the new governors of Lizhbau, Nico and Hilda Ghildau-Bohlver — dual governorship, that’s unexpected — began the decades long struggle to rid the empire of lamia …’ a little more policy wonk stuff and … ah, here we are. ‘Some scholars speculate that the time Fahrar’s family spent as part of the gubernatorial household, where she and Nicholas Bohlver were briefly age-mates, played a part in their successful long-range partnership, although others argue their hostile interactions during Bohlver’s college days suggest otherwise.”

Jack’s jaw dropped. “Whoah.”

“Keep listenin’, it gets better. ‘By 2934 First Empire Date, when she had been with him almost 20 years, David announced that Isobel was the Imperial Leman.”

“Leman?” Jack raised an eyebrow.

“Leman. Seems she was smart; she told him she didn’t have the right to be a consort, and she seems to have believed that to the end of her life. Besides, bein’ an official leman meant she had more power over raising her daughter and son, and more control over her daily life.”

He stopped and looked at Jack. “It seems that they loved each other, her refusal to wed notwithstanding. If I were to venture a guess, I’d think her love stemmed from the grace he showed her. And I think some of David’s love came from her ability to provide him with an heir. When she died, he ordered a full imperial funeral, and even the hidebound types at court didn’t fight that.

“She died at the age of 80. He died soon after that, at … let’s see … at the age of 189.”

“So who succeeded him; the son, or the daughter?” Jack couldn’t help his curiosity. 

“The son initially, but he died at the age of 60, without a child. Doesn’t say why, but that’s early; possibly an accident. His sister became Empress at the age of 62, and ruled until her death at the age of 193. David’s line was not a fertile one but science rendered it long-lived. One of the reasons he was so old at the time he took up with the Tenante was because two wives in a row were unable to bear him children. He understood it was him, not them, and freed them from their gilded cages, while his geneticists tried to figure a way to make his half of the necessary formula work properly. 

“Apparently, they managed to do it with Fahrar. Not only that, their daughter had a daughter, who became the empire’s second Empress. The book doesn’t go beyond that point. But I imagine that what follows is pretty typical First Empire succession foolishness.”

Jack shook his head, still gobsmacked at the transformation of history. “Monarchies. Go figure.”

If the Doctor had had glasses, he’d have been eyeing Jack over their rims. 

“Nothin’ to say about Fahrar’s fate?”

Jack thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and shook his head.

“Worse people have had better fates. She never got to go back home. And in the end, she did what was right.”

Everyone deserves a chance at redemption, Rose had said when he complained to her about Fahrar. She was right, he thought.

_Everyone deserves a chance, eh, boy? Even you_.

****

“This is goodbye, then.”

Hilda smiled as she said it. Rose hoped it wasn’t because she was glad to get rid of them.

“Yeah,” Rose replied. “It's time.” 

She probably didn't need to tell Hilda or Nico about the Doctor’s increasing anxiety at being stuck in one place over the past few days, nor of the TARDIS’ restive twitches. The two of them could easily see that the Doctor was pacing as sure as if he’d been in a cage, she figured. As for the TARDIS, they didn't need to know.

“I'm sorry we can’t convince you to stay longer,” Nico said. “Not just because we could still use your help — though I admit that’s a large part of it — but because I would like to show you Lizhbau without the risk of Maldads blasting at you.”

The two Lizhbauns stood outside the TARDIS, where it stood in an interior courtyard of the Bohlver villa, among the pale pink and yellow flowers that edged the yard. The stone walls still held some of the morning’s warmth, and it was the most comfortable Rose had felt outside since their arrival on the planet.

The Doctor’s lips twitched slightly. “We did originally plan to be tourists. Think it’s for the best now that we head out, though.” He leaned against the TARDIS’ open door as he spoke, trying to look casual. It didn't work; he still looked as if he were readying himself for a mad dash to the exits.

“Will you be back?”

The Doctor shrugged uncomfortably. “Don’t think so, but I never say never.”

Nico’s gaze turned just a tad judgemental. “Do you do this often?”

“Run?” The Doctor’s crazy grin surfaced momentarily. “Yeah. It’s generally because I trust humans to keep on the right path once I help ‘em set it right.”

“Generally.” Hilda couldn’t help smiling in return. “You’ve got other reasons, too.”

The Doctor shrugged, sheepish. “Might could be. That’s for me to find out, I guess.”

At those words, Rose felt a tiny electric spark somewhere in her mind. _Wait, dear one_ , she thought to the air. _We’re going, I promise you, but there’s one thing we need to do before then_. 

Jack, who had come up from the TARDIS interior to stand behind the Doctor, caught her eye, raised an eyebrow. She nodded. The Time Lord hadn’t seen Jack’s expression but, without taking his eyes off their hosts, he put one hand up to his shoulder. Jack grasped it. The Doctor beckoned to Rose with his other hand. One step was all she needed. The three of them together, Rose thought; that was how it needed to be. 

She turned to Hilda. “Say goodbye to Jao for me.”

“I will.” The older woman leaned forward and kissed Rose on the cheek, then eyed Rose’s companions. “Take care.”

“Where’s the fun in that,” Rose asked, suddenly giddy.

“Ah. Well, there’s that,” Hilda allowed. “Still … take as much care as you care to.”

Jack stepped forward, extended his hand to Hilda, then to Nico. Then, almost ceremoniously, he turned and went back into Her depths. Rose took his hint, shook hands with Nico and slipped past the Doctor to follow the Captain. 

“That’s my cue,” the Doctor said. “Take care yourself, Hilda Ghildau, and you, too, Nico Machado Bohlver.” Before they could say anything more, he turned on his heel and loped back inside his ship. The door closed by itself. 

In the gold and green interior, She thrummed like a heart. The three of them stood motionless. 

The Doctor finally spoke. “What now?”

Rose hadn’t heard him sound so unsure of himself since he’d first invited her to come with him. She looked closer at his face.

_His eyes … how can they be so dark and so blue at the same time_? Her breath caught with the enormity of how much she loved him. 

Jack cleared his throat, and sounded almost as diffident as the other man. “Rose and I have a request.”

*************

The mountain was even colder at night. But Jack and Rose had taken care to bundle up, and when they stepped out of the TARDIS, they were rewarded with a windless, moonlit sky. The tall grass, now purple in the dark, parted before them as if they were ships at sea. 

“What are their names?” Jack had one arm around Rose. The Doctor stood next to him, his hand moving as if he wanted to put his own arm around Jack, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. 

“Esperança is the high one with the blue cast.” Rose kept her voice low, feeling as if anything above a whisper was somehow disrespectful of the sky’s beauty. “The bigger white one is Res’lução. Hope an’ Resolve.”

“They’ll need ‘em both,” the Doctor said. 

_No, you’re not going to talk about that. You can’t sidestep it any longer_. 

“Here, you two,” Rose said, pointedly ignoring the Time Lord’s last comment. “Sit down with me.” She didn’t wait to see if they would obey, just plopped herself down, then patted the ground on either side of her. The two men looked at each other before obeying her. 

“What’s up, Rosie?” Jack knew, but sometimes knowing doesn’t reduce the nerves, and he tended to babble when he was nervous. Rose understood, because her heart was trying its best to crawl into her throat to keep her from speaking. _Not gonna work, not this time_. She took a deep breath. 

“You’re human, aren’t you Jack?”

“Human as I can be.”

“From my future, and not from Earth.”

“Right again.”

She looked from him to the Doctor. “And you, you’re an alien, a … a Time Lord, yeah?”

“Yep.” His profile was sharp in the moons’ dual light. Rose had figured he wouldn’t be able to face them, at least not immediately.

_Okay, then. Next step_.

“How old are you, Jack?”

“Give or take a couple years of lost memory, I’m around 34 or 35 years old. I think.” 

“And you, Doctor, you told me you’re 900, yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Now he leveled that measuring stare of his at her, but there was something else in his eyes, too. Hope, maybe. Rose plunged on.

“I was 19 when I first came into the TARDIS, and I’m 20 now. So, we’re none of us close in age. You especially, Doctor.”

“You tryin’ to insult me?" It wasn’t a question, not really, just another deflection. 

“No, she isn’t.” Jack said, slowly. “She’ll stand up to you when it’s necessary, but she’d never insult you. She loves you.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Don’t scare him off, Jack. Let me finish.” The Time Lord had begun to stiffen at Jack’s words. He relaxed as she spoke.

“A 900-year-old alien. A human from another world an’ another time. And then there’s me, straight off the estate an’ into retail, no hope of uni. We shouldn’t even want to be in the same room with each other, at least by some people’s lights. My mum’s, for instance.”

“Oh, now, don’t bring your mother into it,” the Doctor began. 

“We know you don’t like her,” Rose said, allowing a little sharpness into her voice. “But she’s smarter than you think; and she notices a lot more than you’d think. But that’s not the point. The point is that in this case, Mum’s wrong. We do belong together. Doesn’t matter our ages, or what planet we come from.”

The Doctor stared at her. “I —”

“The TARDIS thinks so,” Rose said, firmly. “Jack thinks so. I _know_ so. An’ … and so do you. Because you were with us, weren’t you.

The TARDIS linked us all.”

( _Yes_ )

Jack sucked in a breath. 

The Doctor’s eyes widened. “Wha —” He stopped himself. 

Rose couldn’t speak for a minute, not with that heart in her throat transforming into a lump of tears. _Thank you, dear one_. She swallowed and started again. “That’s the one thing I can be grateful to the silk for. I have … telepathy, inner voice, psionics, whatever the hell you want to call it now, thanks to the stuff … and it’s gonna be with me the rest of my life, I’m pretty sure. And that’s why I can say this, because She told me. She wants us to be together. She knows we love you, me and Jack. I’ve been in love with you since … I don’t know when.” 

The Doctor gasped, but said nothing. His eyes shone now with something more than hope. 

Rose could barely hear Jack when he spoke. “I … me, too. With both of you.” 

He’d been looking off into the distance, just as the Doctor had, but now he turned to Rose. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him in for a hug. “You’re doin’ fine, Jack.” 

( _YouarelovedaregoodareMinearehisYouaretheirsaretheirsListenlistenlisten—_ )

“I’m … not.”

“Not what? Not doing well? Not worthy?” She reminded herself to be calm. “You know we don’t care about any of that. You felt it. Look, if us sayin’ we’re in love with you makes you want to run, then join the … well, join the rest of us. It’s probably the scariest thing in the world … in the universe, yeah?

“I know we shouldn’t fit together, not at all. But love doesn’t care. So how about this? If bein’ in love is too much to talk about, then remember that we’re not just _in_ love with you. We love you, period. Right, Jack?”

“Right.”

“If that’s easier for y—”

The Doctor’s hand, cool and callused, touched her cheek. “Might be easier. I’m a coward, me. But it’s time for me to take the harder path. It’s hard for me to say the words —”

“Do you mean them, even if you can’t say them?”

“Yes … yes. You’re my Rose.” 

That was all she needed. She leaned into his hand. 

He reached across her. “ _Jack_.” The longing in his voice said everything, and Jack wasted no time scrambling to be closer to him. 

Somehow Jack managed to get his arms around both of them, and Rose got her arms around the other two, and then — _thank you, thank you for pushing him_ — his hands were at the back of their necks, drawing their faces to his. 

Rose felt it, then, a mental burst of something like pressure, or joy, or both, something transcending those things, as if an ocean could turn its waves into fireworks. They all felt it, she knew, because their tripartite embrace became even closer. The joy bubbled up, and she laughed because she could, now that she had them both in her arms. Jack and the Doctor laughed, too, and she wondered if the TARDIS was laughing with them. 

( _Child, yes. Goodbye._ )

Not a real goodbye, Rose knew. She would be there for them, and with them, but Rose didn’t think She would speak so directly to them in the future. She no longer needed to. 

Unbidden, the three of them lay back on the dark grass and looked up at the dark sky. Two moons gazed back at them. 

After a long time of silent rapture, and again unbidden, Rose, the Captain, and the Doctor stood up. Behind them, the TARDIS opened Her door.   
They went in. They were home. 

-30-


End file.
